* Windows 7 Re-Installation: novice seeks help? *

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  • hybernia
    hybernia Posts: 390 Forumite
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    Thanks eb / Neil / dcm: yup, I'll read the BIOS info carefully.

    Re taking pictures: absolutely, and thanks for the reminder -- reason why I'm fairly confident about figuring out the BIOS info is that I actually took photographs of the umpteen BIOS screens that came up when I hit the Del key at startup.

    I normally screenshot anything pf importance on this PC, hence why I now have a folder full of images of error messages, including the notably helpful:

    "Windows Explorer. Problem: Stopped working."

    Gosh, who'da thought it? There was me, when the Start button and all the icons vanished from sight, figuring I should've gone to SpecSavers; and:

    "Windows Update encountered an unknown error", followed by: "Error Code 800B0100" followed by "Get help with this error" followed by "WindowsUpdate 800B0100: Suggestions: Please check your spelling". Ah: thanks for that, Microsoft. Not until now have I realised that the reason my computer's not working is because I'm illiterate.

    Anyway. As it's not possible to screenshot anything when Windows hasn't yet launched, that's why my camera has all these images of BIOS data. Bit sad, really: other people take pictures of their kids.:(
  • Le_Kirk
    Le_Kirk Posts: 22,346 Forumite
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    With a philosophy like that ^^^, a sense of humour and all the help and advice you've been given and seem to have learned from and understood, I am sure you will manage very well.
  • hybernia
    hybernia Posts: 390 Forumite
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    Thanks LK. If it all goes pear-shaped, I'll come back on here and cry. Fingers crossed though, a re-install may not, after all, be necessary; I've worked through several Microsoft Knowledge Base articles and it's now become clear that a botched Windows Update (apparently intended to fix Meltdown / Spectre vulnerabilities) has triggered a chain of problems, seeing as how Microsoft in its usual oblique way is admitting it didn't get things right for AMD computers like mine and boot-up fails which it says shouldn't have happened have, in fact, occurred worldwide with many AMD (not Intel) users. Not for the first time, I wonder why I even bother with Windows. . .
  • indesisiv
    indesisiv Posts: 6,359 Forumite
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    Word of advice before beginning ... don't forget that folders on your desktop will need to be moved to the other drive so they don't get deleted!!
    If you are like me and drop folders on your desktop of course.

    But I reinstalled my computer with 2 drives like you and never gave it any thought until 15 mins later when it had finished installing and then I realised. They were the only bits I had lost (apart from the programs that I expected)
    “Time is intended to be spent, not saved” - Alfred Wainwright
  • dekaspace
    dekaspace Posts: 5,705 Forumite
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    Crazy as it sounds, the simplest way of doing it is get a updated iso disc from a trustworthy source, (this is not illegal by the way) this is what I do as someone else has updated it to the current month, and has more updated drivers so most of the time its just a case of put disc in, wait for it to install and then just add a few at most missing drivers and any software you want.

    Official install discs don't forget may be years out of date considering its now a 9 year old operating system, so even on a high quality computer may take all day to update.
  • esuhl
    esuhl Posts: 9,409 Forumite
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    dekaspace wrote: »
    Crazy as it sounds, the simplest way of doing it is get a updated iso disc from a trustworthy source, (this is not illegal by the way) this is what I do as someone else has updated it to the current month, and has more updated drivers so most of the time its just a case of put disc in, wait for it to install and then just add a few at most missing drivers and any software you want.

    Official install discs don't forget may be years out of date considering its now a 9 year old operating system, so even on a high quality computer may take all day to update.

    I'm not sure I'd trust an updated ISO image from anyone other than Microsoft.

    But, you can create an updated ISO yourself using something like NTLite (similar to nLite for XP, if anyone remembers that).

    https://www.ntlite.com/
  • dekaspace
    dekaspace Posts: 5,705 Forumite
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    esuhl wrote: »
    I'm not sure I'd trust an updated ISO image from anyone other than Microsoft.

    But, you can create an updated ISO yourself using something like NTLite (similar to nLite for XP, if anyone remembers that).

    https://www.ntlite.com/

    Theres quite a few trustworthy ones out there, but I didn't recommend NTlite as that would require some knowledge of integrating, getting hold of updates and such.
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