I have PowerQuest Partition Magic and was resizing my partitions but during the resize there was an error and my PC went bezerk. I used a Windows restore disk and somehow got to log back onto Windows and restore the file structure. However, there is still a partition problem on the drive and the PC runs slower and disk cleanup won't run among other problems. I purchased an external drive and backed up everything onto it just in case, but I have been using my computer as if nothing happened b/c I've been too lazy to start over and wipe it clean and reinstall everything.
OK - now I have the time to reformat/restore everything so that it runs more smoothly and so the partitions aren't corrupted. However, how do I do this? Does putting in the WinXP recovery CD do it or do I need to do something with Partition Magic first (resize/delete/reformat the partitions) or should I somehow wipe the drive to a clean slate and start from scratch or what? If I just try to restore Windows and reinstall it, I don't want it to reinstall on a drive w/ corrupted partitions you know? But then again, the file structure was a problem B/C of WinXP so maybe recovering it would fix the problem. Or maybe I should use Partition Magic to redo the same thing that caused the problem before so the partitions are ok or I have no idea. I've never done this before, and I don't know how having 2 partitions affects a restore (repartition first, leave as is, wipe entire drive, delete partitions install WinXP and then re-partition or what).
Any advice/help you can give is greatly appreciated. I wrote down the programs I still need so I can try to find all the cd's to reinstall them. I would just take a drive image or copy the drive but then I'd just be copying the corrupted partitions. What is the best way to fix my computer so that it runs like new? I'm thinking I'll just stick the WinXP recovery CD that IBM gave me and go that route but I bet there are confusing options in it...