Drat!! (CPU swap and reformat- a cautionary tale)

[beaky]

Should've realized what a major pain this would be... I moved all the apps, docs, etc. over to my slave drive, and proceeded to reinstall XP on the C drive, overriding the old install.
Now, I do recall seeing a warning regarding "My Documents" folder during this process... I should blame myself that I lost EVERYTHING in there  :o , even though I'd moved it to the slave drive  ???... but one thing I got no warning about was that all of the programs I'd moved to the slave drive were already copied to the C drive when the reformat was done. i think the installer just left them alone, or were they copied from the slave drive? Anyway, I have a major cleanup to do now...need to make sure it's all complete on the C drive before I get rid of that backup folder on the slave drive. Ow. My head hurts...
 Another odd thing: FS9 is intact except for my saved flights. That folder is MIA. Not a big deal, but it's odd. My add-ons (aircraft and scenery) are all still there, but My Saved Flights- pfft.

As for the lost documents... I'm assuming they're history because I see the "access denied" error message, and the file sizes are shown as zero in Properties. Fortunately, I was pretty up-to-date on backing up music and pictures, so that stuff is not irreplaceable, but it'd be nice to be able to get them back (there are some music files for which I have no backup). Anyone know if this is possible?

There's a lesson here: if you have any doubt whatsoever about what'll happen to files when you do any major change like reinstalling the OS, back them up on something outside of your system... don't wind up like me!
 Anyway, thanks to all those who tried to help this fool, and stay tuned to find out whether I've actually improved the performance of this machine by upgrading the CPU and adding more fans and round cables!!
 

[congo]

The saved flights and other FS config files are held in c:/documents and settings/user name/application data/microsoft/fs9 and... c:/documents and settings/user name/my documents/flight simulator files !!!

LOL! Stupid huh? but that's the way it is.......

You should not have installed over the old XP, but rather, after you get the warning during installation of XP, you get a screen that asks you if you want to format and what file system you wish to format in, partitioning options etc etc....... YOU NEED TO FORMAT!

Otherwise, you are asking for trouble. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

In future, try backing up as much as you can, whatever seems sensible, to the slave drive, If I lost my favourites, for instance, I'd be devastated.