After reinstalling Windows XP, my hard drive is the size as it was was before hand?

Question

My computer crashed today, apparently the system files had become corrupt, after examining the BIOS settings and trying to recover if at all possible, I decided to just reinstall because I simply had nothing that couldn't be replaced. But yet my computer was wiped out but the hard drive is still the same size it was before hand, what can I do and what does this me, feel free to be technical, I am very computer literate.

Answer 1

Do you mean there's the same amount of free space left? Or do you mean your harddrive capacity is the same.

If it's the former (same free space left), and all your programs files are still there and everything you did a recovery install. This means you didn't actually reformat and reinstall, Windows just patched up the broken files. Your programs may not work, but your data (word files, pictures, songs, etc) should all be there.

Else, if all your files are lost, most likely you reformatted and reinstalled. If this is the case then your harddrive should be nearly empty.

If, under the rare circumstance that your harddrive still isn't (nearly) empty, and all your data is gone, then you probably somehow installed Windows again while not wiping the rest of the harddrive. If this happens to be the case then simply reformat and reinstall windows again, and make sure you actually reformat your harddrive (delete the partition, and recreate it).

Answer 2

Unless you replaced the hard drive it would be the same size. If you wiped the drive and installed XP then you would see a lot more free space (which is what I think you are referring to) but if you merely installed XP over what was already there then the open space will be virtually the same. You will, of course, have saved all of your data but will also have to reinstall any programs you were using (like Word). If the laptop is slower booting and shutting down you should clean out the registry as installing over a previous installation does tend to leave a lot of junk in the registry.

Answer 3

Your HD should always be the same size as it was before and after a reformat. The only reason it would decrease is if the drive itself is starting to go bad. If this is happening, back up all your files on cds or something else and buy a new hard drive!