DEstructive Virus: reformat options

I use Win 7 Home Pro 64 (with SP1 dld later), Gigabyte Mobo, 8gigs RAM etc

Much of the past week has been full of virus trouble. I have Zonealarm and it's done well for me, but not this time. Yesterday something sneaked in through Chrome and really shut me down. I couldn't boot, I was stuck in an endless circle of "repair your computer", restart, and again. So I thought to reformat. But I know that I must uninstall the SP1 before I could do that. Impossible. I tried anyway. After a couple of attempts I got a reformat. I was upset, not making smart decisions, but I got my machine running, fast and sweet.

Here's the odd stuff. It looks like my OS is spread into two drives, with most of it on D drive. I have two internal drives, C and D.
In my C disk I got much of the old desktop folders. I had 500 gb of data. Still there, photos, everything. The drive wasn't wiped clean. It looks like the OS is on D. I'll upload files of both drives. Right now I'm doing 159 Windows Updates. Should I leave it be? It runs. A couple of times when I restarted I got a "Chose OS" sowing two Win 7 options. Hmmm.

If I must I can now uninstall SP! and start from scratch. but i was up all night installing my apps, etc.

Thanks

Google Chrome 56 and earlier versions had a serious vulnerability that was patched in version 57, you should make sure that you have Chrome updated to version 57.

I haven't looked at the attached Word documents, and won't until I can use one of my home systems, since they could contain unwanted items. If you attached some screen capture image files (.jpg or .png), I might be able to look at those to see your reinstall issues.

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So I thought to reformat. But I know that I must uninstall the SP1 before I could do that.

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You don't need to uninstall SP1 to reformat. If you're not installing from a Win7 SP1 disc, then you'd need to reinstall SP1 afterwards.

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Here's the odd stuff. It looks like my OS is spread into two drives, with most of it on D drive. I have two internal drives, C and D.

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It sounds like you did a secondary install onto D: instead of C:. That would explain why you still see your data.

If you're sure you want to reformat the drive, I would first disconnect the D: drive. Then do a clean install on C:
https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-clea...dows-7-2624917

It hardly seems worth the trouble to re-do everything, just so I don't have to press Enter or wait 24 seconds. I thought there might be some means of disc management whereby I could make D into C, and C into D...or something like that.

My Win 7 disk is pre SP1 and I've always been told on tutorials that I must uninstall SP!, then do the reformat, then reinstall Sp1 after I've got the OS up and running. Otherwise I get the BSOD.

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My Win 7 disk is pre SP1 and I've always been told on tutorials that I must uninstall SP!, then do the reformat, then reinstall Sp1 after I've got the OS up and running. Otherwise I get the BSOD.

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That makes no sense for a clean install. Everything gets wiped out anyway. Maybe for a repair, but not a clean install. Format = clean install.

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I thought there might be some means of disc management whereby I could make D into C, and C into D

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No. You can't just change boot drive letters like that.

My sense of order will probably cause me to reformat AGAIN, in spite a day and a half of struggle. And Acronis? Failed. I've restored images numerous times with Acronis. I don't know why the program wouldn't recognize my backup. I recently erased older Acronis images to recover disc space. In January I made a complete disc image. It was the only image I had, backed up on a USB drive. Acronis saw the file but gave me a dialogue that said "Browse, retry, cancel" and it wouldn't go away. Two hours until I gave up. Is Windows Backup worth setting up?

Not sure about why your ATI backups didn't work. You used the same version of ATI to create/restore the backups, right?
Are you sure you included the 100MB System Reserved partition? If not, you wouldn't be able to do a proper restore.

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Is Windows Backup worth setting up?

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If you have ATI, nope.

Yes, I have a 100mb safe zone for ATI. I'll give them a call.

No, not the ATI Secure Zone. The Windows System Reserved partition is part of Windows, not ATI. If you didn't include that partition with your image, it won't boot.

https://www.howtogeek.com/192772/wha...you-delete-it/

It's all in the past now, so I'm going to create some new ATI images, soon as I make up my mind whether or not to reformat. Everything functions fine. I just get the extra brief hiccup when starting/restarting. My question is this: can I leave my system as is? Or is there any compelling reason to repeat the reformat to make C my disc zeroAttachment 14231?

Attached is a screen save of my disk management situation.
Thanks

Please stop attaching .doc files. Read these instructions on posting screenshots:
http://discussions.virtualdr.com/att...6&d=1286217798

If you're booting to the D: drive, then something isn't right. Like I mentioned, you probably did a secondary install to the D:. I would do a clean install on C:. And as a precaution, disconnect the D: drive. That would ensure you install Windows on the correct drive.

C is a clone of G
All of your boot files are on your C

Here is mine.
https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...d3&oe=595F85C5

Switch my leads and yes I would boot from what is now G:\

I reformatted again, disconnecting the D drive. BTW, that's not my computer, the above file. I don't know where that came from, but definitely not my machine. I seem to be doing okay, I have a C drive with the correct OS, but I've got a bunch of system files on what is now L. And I have four Windows.old on C, and some of the same on L. I can't seem to delete them without getting a message asking for SYSTEM permission, and I haven't figured my way around that yet. I've read some posts but they are dated. It's late. I'll research this more in the morning. Thanks for your help.

If you still have Windows.old folders on the C: drive, then you didn't do a clean install and/or format the drive.

Did you follow the instructions on the link I posted in post #3? It takes you through a clean install step-by-step. Pay attention to steps 10-15.

Set the machine to boot from DVD drive, select Custom/Advanced option, select the only available drive besides the 100mb partition, press any key to proceed, and INSTALL. The disc with this machine is an old disc, Win7 around 2009 or 2010. System installed plus FOUR Windows.old files.

When I disconnected the D drive I pulled the connector out of the drive. Then I got "OTMGR is missing: press CTRL/Alt/Delete to restart". Over and over again. When I put the connector back in and took the connector off the mobo, that stopped. I've had this computer for around seven years. I've reformatted it around once a year. I learn something each time, because I have different problems each time.

Train's screen captures are from one of his systems, to show you how he has it set up.

Step 10 from Midknyte's link has the instructions on how to remove the existing partitions from the C: drive (with the D: drive disconnected), and reformat the C: drive.

If you disconnect the D: drive, boot from the Windows 7 install CD/DVD, and follow the instructions in step 10 from Midknyte's link, you should be on your way to reformatting the C: drive and performins a clean install of Windows 7.

You just may want to do my trick. I print out the instructions on how to do a clean install and follow them step by step.

And as long as the 2nd drive is disconnected, the computer will NOT boot up.
The instructions tell windows to look for what it needs to boot up are in that 100 MB partition on C:\ drive. And as the 2nd drive is not connected, you get the no boot situation.
And the only way to remove them is follow the steps to remove everything on that drive as listed in the instructions.

I'm too fried to do another reformat. I got the windows.old files out of both C and L. What's left are some system files in L. I can do a number of things: backup all the non-sys files from L onto another drive, then format the disc. Or..is it safe (or even possible) to delete sys files from L?

BTW, I didn't notice that the attached disc mgmt file was yours. After fourteen hours of computer tweaking the brain misses some obvious things.

Otherwise, the computer runs well enough for the old gal that she is.

C is primary boot disc, L is secondary in-box backup disc.Attachment 14237

Can I backup the stuff I need on the L drive, then format it from Disc Management?

You sure can!