[Question] reinstalling windows 7 - data loss?

Tea_Bag

im having enormous problems trying to get my PC to stream media to my xbox again, ive seriously tried everything. the PC "see's" the xbox, but the xbox refuses to see the PC. tried different software settings, different routers, UPnP, DMZ, firewall disabled etc.

im going to resort to reinstalling windows 7 ultimate.
my question is, can it be done without moving data or formatting the HDD? i really dont fancy moving 500gb of data i have on this HDD onto a 1TB external HDD thats nearly full. it'll be messy.

will a repair reset EVERY windows settings i might have changed accidentally, or should i go down the slow painful reformat route?

snappieT

A repair doesn't reset settings. If you have a second hard drive (or the first partitioned), you could install a second copy of windows to that partition, keeping the original one intact. You'll be able to get to the files in the original installation, however programs will need to be re-installed and configured.

I would strongly recommend taking what you need off and starting from a clean slate. Do you really need to move 500GB of data, or is that the size of the drive. What's the actual size of data (documents, music, videos, pictures) that needs to be copied over?

Skerries

^^^^^^^
what he said
you really need to back up your data onto another drive or if you are feeling extremely lazy just buy a new hard drive and put 7 back on that
you can also then buy a caddy for the old hard drive for about €20 and have a 2nd back up drive or slave it into your pc

hearny

Its a long shot but when you set up the pc what Network Location did you choose:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-IE/windows7/Choosing-a-network-location

Make sure you have selected home.

When you said you disabled the firewall you didn't mention what type.

Is there a firewall on the router did you try to disable that.

Tea_Bag

hearny wrote: »

Its a long shot but when you set up the pc what Network Location did you choose:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-IE/windows7/Choosing-a-network-location

Make sure you have selected home.

When you said you disabled the firewall you didn't mention what type.

Is there a firewall on the router did you try to disable that.

its set up on Home network. fully discoverable printer/files everything.

its just windows built in firewall. disabling it makes no difference.

im using a Linksys Wrt54g running dd-wrt. the xbox is not behind any firewall on that router as far as i can tell.

hearny

What other Security programs are on the pc, are you 100% sure you dont have another firewall.

Did you try to boot the pc in safe mode with networking and access it.

Have you tried any other device on the network to see if you can connect to the pc or even ping it.

I dont have an xbox 360 so I dont know what if any tests you can run on the network.

Tea_Bag

hearny wrote: »

What other Security programs are on the pc, are you 100% sure you dont have another firewall.

Did you try to boot the pc in safe mode with networking and access it.

Have you tried any other device on the network to see if you can connect to the pc or even ping it.

I dont have an xbox 360 so I dont know what if any tests you can run on the network.

MS essentials is my only antivirus. no other firewalls.

i cant boot into safe mode to test that, because im archiving loads of data to move onto the external HDD atm.

the xbox has very limited network testing abilities.

ill test the network with another laptop when a housemate gets home.

Tversity (streaming program) can stream to the PS3 but not the xbox. i dont think WMP can stream to a PS3 can it?