Operating System re-install not done correctly
If you are having an issue with your system and decide to reinstall the operating system to fix the issue, it is important that you do the reinstall correctly.
Sometimes people do not wipe the drive but install windows on top of itself thinking they did a clean install. If the install was done in this matter, you can still have the issue that you are having. Also if you didn't get rid of the partition but you did wipe the operating system off the computer, you can still have issues.
If you do a reinstall to fix issues, it is important that you completely wipe the drive before you install the operating system. Click here for instructions on installing an operating system.
There is two methods to determine if you wiped the operating system off the computer and did a install of the operating system.
First method
After you are done with the install of the operating system and before you install anything else, look at Windows Explorer. Do you see any other program on the computer besides Windows? Do you see your personal files that you have created? If the answer is yes, than you haven't done a clean install. A clean install would have removed all the programs and files off the computer. You would only have Windows on the computer.
Second method
Check event viewer.
- Go to Administrative Tools
- Double-click Event Viewer
- You will have various reports in Event viewer
- If any of the reports have a date older than the date you
reinstalled, then you didn't delete the old operating system on
the system. You just installed the operating system on top of
itself.
- For example, If you look at the logs and a log is dated October 1, 2003 and you did the reinstall December 20, 2009, you know the reinstall wasn't done correctly.
If the reinstall wasn't done correctly, you will need to wipe the drive and do the install all over again. For instructions click here.