I have a two-year-old system is badly in need of a repave. At startup there are messages about missing DLLs, and Firefox and a few other apps no longer work. I'd like to hook up an external disk, have everything copied to it, reinstall XP, reinstall the apps, and grab all the data back from the backup. Is there a good way to do this?
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I have a friend who wants to sell their computer, but obviously all personal information and software that it is on it needs to be removed before doing so.  Usually I would format and reinstall it, but I cannot easily get hold of the required XP DVDs and I'm not 100% sure the serial number is stuck on the case as usual so getting hold of it will probably require more effort than I'm prepared to spend.  So, what's the best and quickest way to remove and uninstall everything from the PC without reinstalling it?   Thanks.  EDITS: I'm looking to remove things like Internet History and all installed programs, too. I know how to remove the history and each individual program, but that could take hours.  The machine is not branded and therefore there is no website I can go to download recovery software. There is no recovery partition on the computer and I'm not aware of any recovery DVDs for it either. I can only assume it was installed from a retail copy, and therefore there is no way to recover it to factory settings.  It needs to have XP installed, not any distribution of Linux. Like most average people, the person getting the computer will not understand what to do with a computer that doesn't have Windows installed, and software like Office does not work on Linux either.  Buying another licence is not really an option either. She has just brought a laptop to replace the computer, so buying another licence for a computer that she's getting rid of doesn't really make sense.  Thanks for all the help so far!
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Is it possible to get the files I had on Windows onto my Ubuntu desktop?  How can I connect to my Windows partition from Ubuntu?
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I accidentally deleted important files, for which I do not have a backup.  My thesis files worth four years of sweat is gone and when I tried to go back to a "previous versions" I get the message:     There are no previous versions available   How can I recover them from a Windows 7 machine?
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I was wondering if there is a way to recover photos and things alike from a MacBook after reinstalling the OS X.  Like when you reinstall Windows there is the "Windows.old" folder and you can recover some of the data from there.
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Long story short, I ended up deleting some of the files from C:\Windows\InfusedApps\ and C:\Program Files\WindowsApps.   Now I am hoping if there is a way to completely reinstall all the apps from the Windows ISO.  I know there is an option to "Reset your PC". But I want to avoid that and reinstall only the modern apps
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Okay so I'm having major issues installing/running iTunes through Wine, but I'm in major need to create (and be able to restore from) a full, complete backup for my iPhone since I'm doing a ton of tweaking to it. I don't really know what I'm doing, so there's a 110% chance I'm gonna screw it up, but hey, no one ever learned anything about technology without crashing it a good 100 times right? =P
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I want to back-up all files from my laptop partitions to external HDD.  I ran, for example  cp -a /med*/ravb*/*00   /med*/ravb*/M*L*/7.3GB_CP &amp;&amp; echo "7.3GB BACKED UP PROPERLY" || echo "7.3GB FAILED TO BACK UP"   The issue is that dot files are also getting included which I don't want. What should I do so as to ignore all dot files for backing up.
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I occasionally perform such a reinstall on my Windows PC. I repartition my hard drive, format the partitions, and then install Windows on a blank partition. Can this be done on an Android smartphone? (I have an unlocked Sony Xperia S.)
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Is there a command line program that can send files to the recycle bin? This is on XP and Vista.
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I have an NTFS external hard drive that contains only Windows XP data. How do I connect it to Ubuntu?
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I would like to be able to back up all my settings and files to a dedicated external hard drive in a way that makes (1) all the backup files accessible and (2) would allow me to restore my system is there is a crash.   Is there an app for this or any pointers?  Thank so much.
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I am running Xenial 16.04 and looking to install packages to an external drive - my computer has a 32gb SSD so it would be very useful to me to be able to use an external drive.  In a quick search I found a framework called  which seems to be designed to package all dependencies for a program (chromium, GIMP, some python packages, etc), but haven't had time to look into it.   seems to be looking for the same solution I am.   Thanks, Chris
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Is it possible to copy all my applications from the applications folder onto an external, format my mac, reinstall OS X and finally copy the applications back into the applications folder for installing them?  Will that work? I am asking because my macbook seems to be behaving in a very odd manner, has become excessively sluggish and is preventing me from recording anything in logic.. I have tried the usual freeing up space, clean desktop, fixing permissions, verifying and repairing disk as well as resetting pram and making sure I have all the latest software and firmware updates. The macbook is only 8 months old and is running Lion with 8gb of ram, I really cannot understand what is wrong with it. Even when trying to watch a movie, the player will get serious audio/video synchronisation issues and I noticed that every time my wifi is on the fans speed up like a plane taking off. I even checked and it is clean from any dust. I am perplexed :(   If anyone could help me please, I would greatly appreciate it.  Thanks in advance!
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Here is the error message:  System Restore did not complete successfully. Your computer's system files and settings were not changed. Details: System Restore failed while restoring the directory from the restore point. Source: AppxStaging Destination: %ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps An unspecified error occurred during System Restore. (0x80070091)   What I've tried so far:  chkdsk /f /r C: (didn't work) tried running in safe mode the system restore (didn't work) tried with another system restore point (didn't work)
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I have a general problem with my Windows 8 PC that requires I wipe and reinstall Windows. What is the correct procedure for backing up my minecraft saves and mods and then restoring them on a clean Windows 8 again?
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So I've been messing with thing that probably shouldn't be messed with trying to learn my way around Linux, and I seem to have messed something up. I'm getting a lot of error messages, reduced speed, and crashes, so I'm going to do a clean install.   However, I an using mobile broadband and don't exactly want to use all of it up again re-downloading updates.  Is there any way I can save all the packages installed now with their updates to an external hard drive?
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I want to upgrade my OS X to Yosemite from Lion and also upgrade my HDD to a SSD but im worried about loosing my programs since I don't have the installers or serial keys. Specifically Adobe cs5 master collection and iWork.