Software and Applications

[ronin410]

I've been having internet connection problems for weeks now & I am pretty sure it's my PC that is infected with something I haven't been able to find. When I open my router my PC has over 100 active ports, I've run multiple scans with everything: spybot, Security Essentilas ( my primary anti virus) Malware bytes. I've poured over logs produced by Hijackthis and still can't find what is slowing me down so it was suggested I wipe my drive & start from scratch. I am reluctant to do it for 2 reasons:

1. I have Far Cry 2 installed & I can't find the CD key so I won't be able to reinstall it. Not a big deal for me, but my 12 year old son LOVES this game, he spends a few hours EVERY weekend playing it. I really don't want to have to buy it again. I tried some someftware that locates serial numbers on your PC but it couldn't find it.

2, I'm lazy. Let's face it I'd much rather be playing games or surfing around then reinstall everything for hours.

I have a 2 terabyte drive & right now my entire install is only like 350 Gigs. Could I create a second partition and install on that and then decide on boot which 1 I use? Would I need a second Windows 7 License for that? What are the pros & cons of doing this? I have never wiped a hard drive since having windows 7 & don't know how it works. Thanks for the input.

[bysmitty]

Personally, I'm in favor of just biting the bullet and reloading.  Getting your programs and settings back the way you like it doesn't take that long and that way you're ensured a nice clean machine.  Ideally, reload onto a new or different drive though so you can pop back to the old drive in the event you missed some important files.  The Far Cry 2 situation is tough though.  I don't know any other way than to just re-buy the game.  Getting a Steam copy would ensure you'd never have to worry about the license code again at least.

...bysmitty

[jacobvandy]

If you reinstall on the same hard drive/partition, it keeps all your old files intact and moves the previous Windows installation into a backup folder, which you can just delete (chances are, whatever bug you may have is in there) You still have to reinstall programs and configure settings again, of course, but you don't lose anything.

[ronin410]

to reinstall on the same partition do I just put in the Windows disc & boot from it? I've never reinstalled Windows 7 & I never had Vista so i am not sure what I'm looking at.

[jacobvandy]

Yep, just pretend like you never installed Windows on there before and go from there. You do a custom install, then when you're looking at the partitions you just choose the one that says it has Windows on it already. It will warn you of that and tell you about the Windows.old folder when you click Next. From there it's just like a clean install, but you'll still have all your files on the drive.