Pre-empting software screwups

If you have had your PC get screwed up by a virus / driver / operating system / hardware fault, then you will no doubt be well aware of the situation of "What about all my data, the pictures from our holiday and the kids growing up" scenario.

No I am not going to say anything about backups, my point here is that it is usually the operating system / driver that screws up. Now for many of you, a single large (250GB or bigger) hard drive is usually what you have had the good fortune to have had put into your system when you purchased / made you PC. Right, now if you have to re-install windows or replace the hard drive for any reason, and then re-install windows, for heavens sake, reduce the size of the Windows partition to approx 80-120GB (80000MB - 120000MB) i.e less than 50% of the suggested value of MB that the installation process offers. This will leave you an unformatted partition which you can use to put your data (and emails) on (if you dont know how to do this or need help, again mail me at service@gds888.com).

Once you have finished putting the Windows on, your programs again can be put on the Windows partition. Now using computer management, create the second partition for DATA only (no program installations here, again if you don't know how to do this email me at service@gds888.com). When you have done this, the 'My computer' will reveal two hard drives present. One is used for Windows and program installations, the other will be used for 'My documents' and emails. WARNING DO NOT PUT ANYTHING IN THIS PARTITION / DRIVE UNTIL YOU HAVE MOVED YOUR MY DOCUMENTS FOLDER.

To move the 'My documents' folder to the new partition ('hard drive' in My computer)in XP, simply click on 'start', locate 'My documents', right click on this and select 'properties' from the menu. Click on the 'Move' button under the 'Target folder location' section.
This opens a 'Select a destination' window, locate the second drive (without windows on it) and click 'Apply' then wait. Click 'OK' when finished and now your 'My documents' folder is on the second drive/partition. I go into much more detail in my forthcoming book on Windows installs.

So that being done, now for the emails (Outlook Express/Outlook). If you are putting your email back after backing up /recovering it from a previous install. Make sure that you are not connected to the internet/accessing emails (the idea is here you want to avoid setting up your email account, then finding that some recent emails have come down before you have had a chance to put the backed up / recovered email data in place and set up the storage folder).

Outlook versions allow you to import files of various types, and if you have used this option the usual format is as a .pst file. Simply use the import option to put the emails/folders back.

Outlook Express versions do not have an Outlook Express to Outlook Express transfer only an 'upgrade' option to Outlook. To get the folders for the previous Outlook Express installaton, you require access to copy the 'Local Settings'/ 'Application Data' / 'Identities' folder. When you have this it can be placed back in the same place on the new installation OR you could be super smart and put it on the DATA partition and point Outlook Express to that partition (Please remember not to connect to your email before doing this as you will possibly overwrite the folder containing the newer emails or have two folders and have to switch between the two)

That's all for now people
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