Recovering absolutely all of my Windows 7 profile

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Ramtruck

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Apr 18, 2013
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A few weeks back, I tried to install a new graphics card, but my computer didn't turn back on. I took it to a shop and found out that my friend who build my computer didn't install standoffs. The computer shop fixed everything, but the harddrive wouldn't boot windows. I told them that I would handle it, thinking I could just reinstall windows and everything would be normal. I was wrong. The only thing I have that is even a trace of my old setup is the windows.old folder.
I built my computer with windows 7 and got absolutely everything set up. Everything was fine until the described problem above occured. I just want to know if there's a way to restore absolutely all of my old files from my old windows 7 setup to my restored windows 7 setup. I've tried online and everything, but could find nothing that helps.
What I want is to have everything in my windows.old folder set up again so that my computer is just the same as it was 4 weeks ago. I don't want to have to reinstall any of my old drivers or anything. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm so nervous and just don't want to start over again. It would be even harder than setting the desktop up for the first time and I'm so busy and tired that I just can't stand experimenting and messing something up.
My build:
NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Steel / Plastic Enthusiast ATX Full Tower Computer Case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811146067

CORSAIR CX750M 750W ATX12V v2.3 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply New 4th Gen CPU Certified Haswell Ready http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128514

SAMSUNG 840 Series MZ-7TD250BW 2.5" 250GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147189

AMD FX-8150 Zambezi 3.6GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor FD8150FRGUBOX http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103960

EVGA 01G-P3-1556-KR GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) FPB 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support ... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130625

Kingston HyperX 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 Desktop Memory Model KHX1600C10D3B1/8G http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820104301

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO Aftermarket Heatsink
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
 
Solution
Jaxem
Manually download the driver package from nvidia and you'll be fine (it's probably still in the downloads folder of your windows.old directory :))
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Mar 16, 2013
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What I want is to have everything in my windows.old folder set up again so that my computer is just the same as it was 4 weeks ago. I don't want to have to reinstall any of my old drivers or anything.
Click to expand...

"I want it perfectly like it was before, but I don't want to have to do anything"

I don't think that exists. Unless you cloned an image along the way...
 
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Jaxem

Jaxem

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Jul 22, 2013
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Doing an initial setup right is important, the sad news is, there isn't a way (especially now that you've installed over the old install) to just put those files into your new install. Your personal files are fine to move out of there, but applications install in many locations and write to the registry, which you wouldn't have if you just tried to move over the program files folders. Most of the applications wouldn't work at all. Re-setting up is kind of a pain , but it's what you do if you have to, it should go a bit faster since you did it once already. I had to re-install just last week on my main rig to get certain things working, and i'm glad i did.
 
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neieus

neieus

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Dec 29, 2011
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You will not be able to get it perfectly like it was before but your files are still there. If you go inside the windows.old folder all of your files are there in their original locations as previously installed. Instead of re-installing windows if you had booted into the windows repair you could have re-installed your installation of windows without losing any of your files but now that's not possible.
 
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Ramtruck

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Apr 18, 2013
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Well I'm just freaking out. I'm sorry. I never got an image made which I am severely regretting, but my gtx 550 is just being detected as "standard VGA graphics adapter" and won't update because my computer claims it's already up to date, so my screen still looks tiny and I can barely see.
 
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Ramtruck

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Apr 18, 2013
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Haha, thanks. After my last reply I did exactly that and sorted out my files some more then switched to windows 8, which pretty much fixed everything, earning Microsoft much respect
 
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