Some of my xp files got corrupted, and with that I can't even boot the computer in safe mode. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] en-startup Now, I've decided to reinstall windows, however, will that in turn completely wipe my hard drive? I have two partitions, C and D on one hard drive. Or, could it also possibly just wipe my C directory clean? Thanks to all those who post.

When you reinstall windows everything on the hard drive you are installing on will be lost when windows reformats the drive.

What I would do is a "repair install" and not a full install. If you don't know about the repair install, just google it.

I don't like repair installs, but it's a good idea to repair it, then transfer all your documents to D:
and then doing a clean windows install

Agreed.. I used to partition long ago and have had partitions break, thus loosing everything. Drives are so cheap nowadays, go get yourself and extra drive and store your personal files on the extra drive.

But in the meantime do a repair - just load the XP disk and you'll see the option - copy your files to the other partition and then reinstall fresh.