Precautions for a complete XP reinstall?

[Dogg Thang]

Oh, now here's a weird problem. I had to set up a new profile while reinstalling Windows. But I've noticed that my old 'My Documents' is sitting in my 'Documents and Settings' folder but it won't let me in - says access is denied. Wouldn't be much of a problem expect there are about 40GB of crap in there that I thought was just going to get wiped. Anyone know how I can get into that or just delete it?

[EvilBoris]

I think it's becuse you can only access it from the original profile

you could try this

1. Turn off Simple File Sharing: a. Click Start, and then click My Computer.
b. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options, and then click the View tab.
c. Under Advanced Settings, click to clear the Use simple file sharing (Recommended) check box, and then click OK.

2. Right-click the folder that you want to take ownership of, and then click Properties.
3. Click the Security tab, and then click OK on the Security message, if one appears.
4. Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.
5. In the Name list, click your user name, Administrator if you are logged in as Administrator, or click the Administrators group.

If you want to take ownership of the contents of that folder, click to select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box.
6. Click OK.

You may receive the following error message, where Folder is the name of the folder that you want to take ownership of:
You do not have permission to read the contents of directory Folder. Do you want to replace the directory permissions with permissions granting you Full Control? All permissions will be replaced if you press Yes.
7. Click Yes.
8. Click OK, and then reapply the permissions and security settings that you want for the folder and the folder contents.

You may need to boot into safe mode for the options to appear.

If you don't have the simple sharing options, liek I said go into safe mode but start from 2.

[wod]

once you have your pc back to how it was but working with all the programs and everything

why not make a ghost image to save doing a windows install every time you wipe your c drive

[Dogg Thang]

A ghost image? I haven't even heard that term before - is that similar to a restore point?

I got rid of all trace of Norton (jesus that programme is worse than any virus - I had to go into the registry and it was all over it) and I'm trying NOD32 on Charles' recommendation. That Avast looks good too but NOD32 is getting rave reviews everywhere.

And a huge thanks to EvilBoris - that worked a treat. I was able to take ownership of that folder and get rid of everything I didn't need. Cheers for that.

[EvilBoris]

There is a program called norton ghost which you may be able to aquire.

It bascially takes a 100% backup of all the data on your HDD and puts it into 1 file.
So it would save windows in its fresh state, pre installed, pre configured and ready to roll.

Yo0u can then use this file to save the trouble of reinstallation and driver downloading etc, you can use it on your own PC or even put this file onto another computer and have a clone of your HDD.

Its especially handy to use if you want to seemlessly upgrade to a larger capacity harddrive.