PC Help

Ok, Last week I whipped and cleaned out the laptop. It is working perfect.

As they say, when it rains, it pours.

My desktop is now giving me fits. Whenever I run adaware, and remove the spyware crap, my internet connection does not work.

Also when I try to run certain programs it tells me teh program shut down due to an unusual runtime error.

I have removed the programs in question and no beans when I reinstall them.

So I want to reformat the c drive, and reload everything.

Can I just copy the C drive(15GB) over to my slave drive (200GB), and then just move the appropriate program files.

Or would it be best to back up important files to cd, wipe clean, reload all software and all downloads. The potential PITA factor is what gets me here.

Sorry for not putting this in tech talk, but I really need to get this problem figured out quickly.

you can move it all over, just don't expect ALL your programs to work. The data should be fine though, and this would probably be the best course of action.

Indy,

Best way is unfortunately the PITA one. Instead of copying all files, try to be selective and use it as a time to clean out all the crap you don't want or care about. You can't copy most programs over and back b/c of the registry references that are only included on installation of the program. You'll have to do your best to find which files have your data stored. A somewhat reliable way of doing it is to unistall the program and it will ask you if you'd like to keep saved files/configuration files. You should hit Yes and this will be the info you will want to copy to your secondary drive and then back once you reformat and reinstall. (Be forewarned not all programs work like that so I wouldn't uninstall everything)

I usually keep my files in decent order, it will just take several cds to backup all of my info, I'm a graphics geek and a photo hog, so I have lots of archives.

If the data stays intact, then I will re-install the programs on the clean c drive.

Thanks for your help.

INDY