Need to go back to my Windows.old installation...

[Rineocerous]

Multipart problem here so I'll break it up to be clear.

Initial problem.. still needs solving.

Suddenly one day the two drive letters associated with my internal USB "7 in 1" mem card reader weren't listed under "My Computer." The device was still receiving power as the LED would light up when I inserted an SD card but Vista wouldn't detect it.

So I put the card back into my camera and plugged it in via an external USB port.. Windows detected my camera and told me it was installing it. It even showed me an icon of a camera which gave me hope.. but then it just said "failed." It never offered me to manually find drivers or anything else.. just "failed."

To be clear.. I have used this camera on this very same computer before and I haven't made any major changes. One of my friends DID mess around with some of my "services" and other settings a week prior to this problem while trying to make my media server connect with my PS3 but I kept pretty close tabs on him and haven't managed to find any obvious problems while reviewing my "services."

Now on to the second problem..
In all my stressing I thought of repairing my Vista with the DVD.. in hopes that it was just some corrupted driver or something. Perhaps I was blinded by frustration but after discovering that I didn't have a backup to restore from I decided to reinstall Vista..

As a result I ended up with a nearly full HDD and a Windows.old folder with all my important files. I also plugged in the camera and Windows found it no probelm. (Still no "7 in 1" card reader though.)

Anyways... I need help restoring my Windows.old folder and would love any interesting ideas about my USB issues. As for restoring.. I don't have any more drives or partitions and I don't have much space left on the drive.

Thanks in advance.
Rine

 

[mqudsi]

You can restore your Vista windows.old installation by following these steps: http://neosmart.net/blog/2006/so-you-overwrote-your-xp/

You'll need to copy bootmgr and BOOT folder instead of the ntldr and ntdetect.com; and skip the section about bootsect.exe

 

[Kirsten]

Using Windows.old in Vista

I have windows XP MCE and Vista Home Premium on my HP pavilion Laptop in dual mode. I had my laptop repared and drive C: with Xp were reinstalled. After that I had no acces to Vista. I learned that Vista had to be installet after Xp, so I reinstalled Vista. Now all my programs and users lies in Windows.old.
My question is: Can i use this method to restore my things in Vista??

 

[mqudsi]

Assuming you're saying that C:\Windows.old contains your old Vista stuff, yes, you should be OK to use that method.

Please do let us know if it works, so we can mention that on the guide.

 

[Kirsten]

It did work out, thank you. Now I just need to delete the files I do not need anymore. I just want to be quite sure before I do that.
Nice helpfull forum you have got here, I'll be back.

 

[mqudsi]

Glad to hear it. We'll be waiting