Complete Restore

i would like to completly reinstall my comp
but keep certain things like the films i have downloaded or the music i have on my comp
but delete everything else
is this possible?

yes and no, if i was you i would just burn all your stuff to cds, then format your whole hard drive and re-install windows

If you have 2 hard drives or if you have 2 partitions on one drive you can leave your data on that space. Reformat just the C: partition when reinstalling.

You may want to consider making it that way if you are starting over.

:(
only got one single harddrive

scribblec how Somebody1234 explained is the best and safest way
if u only hav one harddrive if anything goes wrong with windows
it don't touch ur personal data..how i hav mine

40gb drive splitt
c:14 gb for windows and apps

d:23gb for storin data,movies music.etc, before i burn to disk

you could use partition magic to create the partitions. It worked for me the other day. Also cosider making a clone or an image of your os and apps to make your restore easier.

i have a complete restore cd
my os is xp home
which came with comp

check the cd and see if it offers you reinstall windows and keep data. should do xp pro does

i dont wanna keep data
i wanna keep certain data
like my music files and video ones
i wanna get rid of sp1
and all other stuff like that

I don't know a lot about XP (I still use 98), but why couldn't he just...

1. Start with a boot disk

2. From the command prompt, rename the Windows directory to something like 'Win_Old'

3. Restart with the XP install disk in the drive and do a full install

Wouldn't this be a clean installation with a fresh new registry? That would allow him to keep all the other files and folders on his drive. He would just need to reinstall all his games and apps.

If you archived the files whilst installing SP1 just go to control panel - add remove programs and uninstall it there ;)