Reinstalling Xp

[canuckamuck]

Ok I admit, although I use a computer everyday since 1993, some parts of Computer wizardry have passed me by. I like to reformat my HDD every once in a while and reinstall XP. I find that this is a bit inconvenient, but a surefire way to get all my programs running quick and smooth again. Yes there are probably better methods, but this works for me. However, I am tired of having to get someone at TukCom to do it for me, simply because I don't know how to format my C: drive by using an alternate drive.

I know I should be able to install another version of XP on one of my other drives, and then wipe the C: and then reinstall. But I am confident that I will screw it up, so I thought I would ask some of the resident computer savants how this is done.

I have two 160 GB HDD's both partitioned 80/80. I have lots of room, on all.

How should I proceed?

[Tywais]

What I do is after a clean install and my key programs installed is to "Ghost" the drive, that is create a mirror image of it, and save the ghosted image to an external USB drive. In your case you can do it on your 2nd internal drive. The total size of the ghosted image will be smaller then the original disk due to compression. When you want to re-install, then boot from the Ghost CD/DVD and do a restore.

[Wash]

Ok I admit, although I use a computer everyday since 1993, some parts of Computer wizardry have passed me by. I like to reformat my HDD every once in a while and reinstall XP. I find that this is a bit inconvenient, but a surefire way to get all my programs running quick and smooth again. Yes there are probably better methods, but this works for me. However, I am tired of having to get someone at TukCom to do it for me, simply because I don't know how to format my C: drive by using an alternate drive.

I know I should be able to install another version of XP on one of my other drives, and then wipe the C: and then reinstall. But I am confident that I will screw it up, so I thought I would ask some of the resident computer savants how this is done.

I have two 160 GB HDD's both partitioned 80/80. I have lots of room, on all.

How should I proceed?

I loose sight of what you are trying to accomplish with this method of maintenance. I would simply go to My Computer, right click on each of the drives one at a time, select properties, select tools, select error check now, then return to do a defrag of each drive. This will accomplish everything I can imagine you will achieve with a reinstall but will keep the upgrades that you have made to your windows xp with automatic updates.

Doing a reinstall to be up to date you will have to install a huge amount of upgrades to bring your system to current level of functionality each time you reinstall.

Doing a defrag about once a month with xp will serve most users very well.

The additional benefit of this kind of maintenance is that you can do it all yourself and do not need to take it to service location for help.

Good luck.

[canuckamuck]

Thanks Twais, I always wondered what Norton Ghost was for. I will use it after I get my core programs reinstalled.

Walsh, I don't agree, I know that the difference between reinstalling from scratch and just doing system maintenece like defrags is quite noticeable, at least it is for me. Anyhow I have to start over, I got tagged by a virus several months ago and the computer has been running badly ever since. I just haven't had the time.

My goal here is to figure out how to do it myself this time. Here's what I want to do. I want to load XP on a secondary drive.

Is this easy to do without interfering with the other OS on C:?

Then how do I access the second version of XP?

And then will the second version of XP be able to format the C: drive?

Those are my three questions

[Tywais]

I want to load XP on a secondary drive.

1. Is this easy to do without interfering with the other OS on C:?

2. Then how do I access the second version of XP?

3. And then will the second version of XP be able to format the C: drive?

Those are my three questions

I added numbers to make it easier to answer.

1. Disconnect your main XP drive before attempting to install on the 2nd drive. Reason, XP will turn it into a dual boot system with the boot information on your 1st drive. If the 1st drive fails, the 2nd one wont boot.

2. Select in your BIOS which drive you want to be booted from, should be set as the 1st boot device.

3. Once booted from the 2nd drive, then the first drive just looks like any other general drive and can be formatted.

However, I don't see any advantages to doing this and personally would be nervous of a mistake as to which drive you are on. Also, if you get a virus it can propagate to the 2nd drive. If you Ghost it with a clean, virus free install that won't be an issue. And, you can't just copy the 2nd drive over to the first drive and expect it to work - boot information will not be the same and a myriad of other issues.

[canuckamuck]

Ok I think I will just get the C drive wiped at TukCom again, and then when I have a clean install I will Ghost it. How do most people get there OS drive reformatted?

[RKASA]

Invest in a cheap usb to ide cable. plug the drive in external. use erraser and re partition and format as desired. all can be done from a boot live cd which you can download free (50 to 75 mb)  google utility cd's.  Now you have a clean and ready drive because from a live cd nothing can infect your freash drive.  Put the drive back in and do a fresh install, or bring in your image from other drive.

[quiksilva]

Hit F10 during start up to go into the recovery console. From there I selected the option to format the HDD and reinstall xp

(Actually I had to get to the recovery console via a recovery disk I made, but the same process applies).

[canuckamuck]

Thanks for the replies.

What I ended up doing was just getting the C drive formatted and they then when I got my main programs installed with most of the updates, I made a Ghost backup, so theoretically I can use Ghost next time to save me a ton of work.

Twais: I was wondering how do you use Ghost as a backup, do you just use the restore my computer function and watch it run, or to you have to do it from a boot disk?

From the boot disk is what to do, fairly obvious ?

Edited January 21, 2008 by canuckamuck

[hp8000]

My 2 cents. Same as Tywais I make compressed images of my partitions (both windows C: and my GNU/Linux) after a fresh install with all the drivers, updates and main apps. I use the partimage utility contained in the SystemRescueCD LiveCD. It's similar to Ghost but in GPL and free.

I save these images on another partition or on a second harddrive. And I repeat the process at every important update or at least every month, after having cleaned the systems, and I delete the old images. If I need to reinstall any of the 2 OS, the image restoration will simply overwrite the partitions without any need to format. And I get a clean, updated and running machine in less than half an hour.