Extremely angry with LostCoast

I came to the channel asking for assistance on reformatting a hard drive and re-install Windows XP. This individual told me to delete partitions, which I did, rendering Windows useless at the time. Then he tells me that that was probably wrong, and that I should have taken out the hidden partition. I became greatly upset because I couldn't use Windows at all, and had to start over. When I asked for a new partition, I find my hard drive had shrunk nearly a quarter.

I tried to call attention to that fact, and that this was his error, and he should help me, and he insults me, threatens me with banning, and boots me.

And THIS is what you call a help channel? :-(

[Web moderator]

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Although your experience doesn't happen too often, all we can say is sorry.

Sorry to hear you had a bad forum experience. It appears there was a breakdown in communication.

...reformatting a hard drive and re-install Windows XP.

This expression implies that a backup has already been made. Somehow new users are thinking this means a recovery method with no backup plan in use.

Formatting a hard drive is done to destroy unwanted data and start a fresh file system. It never means a refresh of the file system structure sand maintain data.

Sorry to hear you had a bad forum experience.

He did? he never mentioned it.

He did? he never mentioned it.

What was his rant about?

What was his rant about?

Chat, not forum, I think.

seaotter asked me for help installing an OS clean in Chat. They asked that they were at the delete partition question presented by windows and I said for a clean install you should delete the partitions and reformat fully.  After the the first partition was deleted they came to the second one and found it was a hidden partition that windows will not delete.
I told them that its time to abort the install and use a program that would delete it so they would have full use of the 40 gig drive that was less about 10gig with the hidden partition. They panicked and blamed me that the install was not trouble free and attacked me for ruining the first partition that contained the old windows that was the only way they could make a bootable cd to run the program for removing the hidden partition..

I could go into more detail but I think this will give a good picture of what happened..

I report , you decide 

Yeah, we have a better picture.  I barely understood your last post.

 You have an issue with understanding a clean install?  Its simple stuff for an Expert.

Is it my grammar or your lack of understanding?

[Moderator]

Your post really IS hard to follow. Regardless, in the future you might NOT want to recommend deleting hidden partitions unless the user specifically says he understands what it is and wants to delete it.

Excellent advice Allan, although you weren't aware of the whole picture, I understand your concern.

[Web moderator]

I think the user should just be directed to the forums for something like this.

Allen is right. Deleting a hidden partition is a can of worms.

I want to thank everyone for their opinions and say goodbye, my work is done here.

Lovely chap.