Recycle bin corrupted big time

[Brink]

Sure, you can backup your files to DVD if it will not use many, then run your Vista installation DVD to do a clean (format C: drive only) install.

Do you have a retail Vista DVD or a OEM Vista DVD that came with your computer? If OEM, then what brand is your computer so I can pull up how to do it with that one.

 

[nancy361]

i have a DELL inspiron 531, i have the OEM that came with the computer...
so should i get DVDs or CD-r that holds 700MB?? I have that back up thing that comes in my tray . when i back up things can i pick what i want with that application to back up or can i only do the whole drive... i recall backing up the whole drive a cpl of yrs ago but things have changed since then... i wish there was another way to communicate then on here. plus what about serv pack 2? i have to uninstall that dont i?

 

[Brink]

Nancy, if you're up for it, let try this one more time to see if we can avoid doing a clean reinstall.

Go ahead and create another new administrator account, then delete the other new account.

This time only copy the contents of the C:\Users\Nancy (original account) user folders (ex: Music, Documents, etc...), but not the centents of the AppData folder, to the new account.

Afterwards, copy only the contents of this folder below to the same folder in the new folder to copy over your start menu shortcuts.

C:\Users\Nancy\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs


If everything checks out ok afterwards, then you can delete your original account while logged on to the new on.

 

[nancy361]

ok ill try it... not a problem to do a reinstall though....

if you recall what i said about copying and paste in previous post, i was doing what you said but when i pasted the LIST of songs to new music folder it didnt work...

what if certain things arent in folders that maybe they should be in?? like music folder should contain ALL the music that is on the HD, right? we have itunes downloaded as well as best buy digital music rhapsody, but in MY CURRENT music folder upon opening it, it shows list of songs, yet there is a itunes folder with all that music in it but its NOT in music folder. same with pictures, all kodak pictures but i think they are in a public folder .. i am making you nuts im sure.... really sorry to take up your time with this stuff.... believe it or not, i get around the computer pretty good and if im stumped i look things up...but sometimes my mind draws a blank...

a few wks ago i had that PAV.EXE bug as well as a few more trojans, i have mcafee virus scan plus and have no idea why they got thru it... it mustve really done a job on this computer and affected other things that use to work.... while trying to get rid of it all was when recycle bin got messed up... so there may be other things that got corrupted too ... who knows..... its gone though i got it all cleaned from other tech help support.

 

[Brink]

LOL, it's not a problem at all Nancy. Don't worry about it.

Some programs like itunes and the Kodak one store stuff in their own folder instead. This is normal. For now, I would not delete your current original account and just leav it so you can access the music files and picures from the programs from the new account until you can get them copied over. There may be a option in the program that may let you copy them, but I do not know for sure, so you will need to post a separate how to copy those type of music files over.

 

[Frostmourne]

i was just thinking that myself..... i never had to do that before ...i dont want to lose my FAVORITES or all my pictures, i think that is a public folder then kodak pics are within that folder... ALL the music, they will kill me if itunes and rhapsody best buy music vanishes... plus i have firefox browser...AND i just installed vista serv pack 2. so dont i have to uninstall that 1st?

i hate to ask you this but is there any way you can explain how to do it? from removing serv pack 2 to how to back up all those important things, all i have is a 2gb thumb drive, or should i use discs? should i just back up things i want to save or the whole drive, i dont know if i want that, it may be infected or corrupted. dont need that on new install..

Use Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image to make an image. Then you can extract it on a fresh install. Just don't back up the system files.

 

[Brink]

Hello Nancy,

I just wanted to check in to see how things were going with this for you.

 

[nancy361]

not going anywhere at the moment, Shawn. LOL.....

I was wondering if it wouldnt be better to just do a clean install ....i just worry that i may have backed up and then restored bad files that are causing all this if i do a reinstall.. i dont want that mess coming over to a new fresh start...

plus you wanted me to try the new account thing again and copy subfolders to new subfolders.. if you recall, i said when i went to my music folder and OPENED it inside wasnt a subfolder, but the list of songs.... i selected all and copied then went to new account and opened music folder and then pasted inside that music folder. but i didnt see anything, no songs etc etc.. so its like the copy and paste isnt doing what it should or im doing it all wrong...

if i do a clean reinstall, cant i use vistas backup and restore?? and JUST backup WHAT I WANT to keep? i can backup my bookmarks within firefox, from what i was told, i use that browser..... All i want to keep is ALL the music files, ALL the kodak pics, all my windows mail contents and contacts and whatever is saved in MY DOCS.. there isnt anything else to keep......so if i do a backup and then restore thru vista cant i JUST BACKUP THAT STUFF?? that way no corrupted sys files or whatever will be reinstalled.

another thing, since i just installed serv pack 2, do i have to uninstall it in order to do a clean reinstall?

sorry SO MANY questions.... its just a good comp with what i want on it and i dont want to make it worse then it is by messing things up

 

[Brink]

No problem Nancy,

First, I would create a new post in the Software forum to find out how to backup your music files from itunes, and the pixture files from the Kodak program. It will not be able to use the normal copy and paste with itunes, not sure about the Kodak program. I never uses them so I don't know how to.

Personally, since you said the new account worked perfectly until you copied over the old accounts settings and files, then I would just create another new account. This time we will not copy the settings, but only any of your personal files that you wanted to keep in the user folders (Ex: Documents, Downloads, etc....) and the Start Menu shortcuts at the folder below into the new new account like before.

C:\Users\Nancy\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

This way your new account should work just fine with your current Start Menu shortucts. When you are able to get your backups created for your itunes music and Kodak pictures and copy them into the new account, you can then delete the other older accounts when everything checks out ok.

This would be much easier than doing a clean install and having to reinstall everything again.

 

[nancy361]

what does the start menu have to do with all this?? you mean when i click start at the bottom left and whatever is in that list?

i really didnt copy much over at all because when i copy and paste it didnt APPEAR to paste... i dont know... wouldnt it be easier to use vistas backup and restore center and just back up things i want to keep, then do a CLEAN REINSTALL of vista? because after clean reinstall of vista then i go to restore and put disks in and all my stuff will get restored to proper places, right? i use firefox browser and i can backup my bookmarks there... and cant i backup my browser on a disk as well?

 

[Brink]

The Backup and Restore Files feature in Vista is not always reliable when doing a restore from a clean installation unfortunately, and I do not think it may be able to backup your itunes music. It would be safer to manually backup those files when you found out how to from the other post than risk losing them.

The shortcuts (program and personal) that you have added into the Start Menu All Programs area since you started using your original account is what would be copied into the new account from the location below. Otherwise the new account will not have them in the Start Menu.

C:\Users\Nancy\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

 

[nancy361]

okay, i can backup the itunes and other music and kodak pics separately..

whats funny is, in my start menu, all programs list, is limewire... that has been uninstalled an deleted the folders .. yet it still remains in that list i right click to delete and then it tells me i cant have access to do that.... probably because that was part of the problem with causing the virus etc etc..

if i dont use backup and restore from vista, how can i go about backing up the things i want to keep onto dvd-r, so as to restore them after a reinstall of vista?

 

[Brink]

The hard part is figuring our how to backup your itunes music and kodak pics.

The rest of the personal files in the C:\Users\(user name) user folders (Contacts, Desktop, Downloads, Favorites, Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos only), or anything else, that you want to backup can be manually copied and pasted onto a DVD as a backup separately to, then manually copied back into those same folders afterwards.

 

[nancy361]

i started to read that i could do that... how though?

also i am wondering, why in some of the pictures of a folder do they look green and other folders look deep yellow and yet others look transparent yellow

The rest of the personal files in the C:\Users\(user name) user folders (Contacts, Desktop, Downloads, Favorites, Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos only), or anything else, that you want to backup can be manually copied and pasted onto a DVD as a backup separately to, then manually copied back into those same folders afterwards.

how do you manually back those up onto a dvd-r and reverse it again

i noticed these ntuser.dat log1 and log2 at bottom of list of users nancy.... what are these? i cant delete them

 

[Brink]

You will need to create a new post in the General Discussion forum to find out how to backup your itunes music and kodak pictures. I do not know how for these.


For the others: Right click on File in user folder and click on Copy, then right click on DVD drive and click on Paste. Reverse to copy back.

 

[nancy361]

okay, so when i go to C users nancy and see the list of folders for me, lets say i want to work with contacts. im not moving the whole folder itself, just whats inside, right?

so go to contacts folder and right click on it to see contents inside, then copy all that.. then you say ***right click on dvd drive and click paste...***????

i dont see a DVD drive to click on, across the top i see view organize BURN etc etc... if thats the tab you mean i should right click on, well cant right click a burn tab. but if i click burn itll open the E drive so i can put a dvd in it.
i have vista home basic , so maybe your tabs or that window itself is different... cause i dont see a dvd drive to click on.

are you saying to click the BACK button and go back to the COMPUTER where i see all the drives on the computer? C, D, E,F

 

[Brink]

okay, so when i go to C users nancy and see the list of folders for me, lets say i want to work with contacts. im not moving the whole folder itself, just whats inside, right?

Correct.

so go to contacts folder and right click on it to see contents inside, then copy all that.. then you say ***right click on dvd drive and click paste...***????

You right cick on the Contacts folder and click on copy, then open the Computer window (button in Start Menu on dark side) and right click on your DVD drive and click on Paste to copy the Contacts folder and it's contents.

To restore this, you would open the DVD in Computer, open the Contacts folder, select all the contents and click on Copy, then open the Contacts folder in Windows 7 and right click and click on Paste.

i dont see a DVD drive to click on, across the top i see view organize BURN etc etc... if thats the tab you mean i should right click on, well cant right click a burn tab. but if i click burn itll open the E drive so i can put a dvd in it.
i have vista home basic , so maybe your tabs or that window itself is different... cause i dont see a dvd drive to click on.

are you saying to click the BACK button and go back to the COMPUTER where i see all the drives on the computer? C, D, E,F

You will need to place a blank DVD in the drive and format it as a live drive first of course before you can copy your files to it.

You can open the Start Menu and double click on the Computer button on the dark side to open another window to then see the drive letter for your DVD drive to click on to copy and paste your files to.

 

[nancy361]

**You will need to place a blank DVD in the drive and format it as a live drive first of course before you can copy your files to it. **

and thats not hard to do is it?
before i do anything else, put the dvd in and just follow what it says or is there something else i need to do. what is format it as a live drive??

 

[Brink]

No, it's not hard. When you place a blank unformatted DVD in the drive and close it, you should get a AutoPlay pop-up. Select to format the DVD as a live data drive so that you can add more files to it later if you like to. If AutoPlay does not pop-up, then you can open Computer, and double click on the DVD drive to have it pop-up. That's all.

 

[nancy361]

oh ok. i think i recall doing that before with cds.

you know what the big thing is ,,, what i want to do is organize all the pictures folders and files(kodak) and ALL the music folders and files... all INTO C users NANCY.... NOT having these all over the place... like in nancy documents are some pictures in a folder and in C users PUBLIC are some pictures in a kodak folder, some music is in a shared folder in users nancy etc etc .. see where im going with this?? if i can group these things into C users NANCY instead of USERS PUBLIC or somewhere else.... then everything thats in C USERS NANCY will be all the things i want... follow me?

and im wondering why when i select all and click copy then move to where i want to go and click paste, why dont i see what i copied and pasted in new place? its like it never happened. this is why i wish somebody was here with me to work with me and see what im doing to get this done right and over with actually..... im caught between maybe a clean reinstall, but i still have to backup and restore, and you said vistas backup utility isnt reliable OR just trying to do this with the folders and a NEW USER account... ** SIGH**