If I have a hard drive that is purely for data and no registry or
applications exist on it but yet I am reinstalling my OS (Win XP Pro), would
you think it is wise to completely wipe this drive provided I have backups
of the data on it. By wiping and formatting it again in Win XP, doesn't that
start it again back at square one with no fragmentation or can I just simple
not wipe it and run a deep defrag program on it? Suggestions here please?
Plan on starting my upgrade/reinstall tomorrow.

Mark G. wrote:
> If I have a hard drive that is purely for data and no registry or
> applications exist on it but yet I am reinstalling my OS (Win XP
> Pro), would you think it is wise to completely wipe this drive
> provided I have backups of the data on it. By wiping and formatting
> it again in Win XP, doesn't that start it again back at square one
> with no fragmentation or can I just simple not wipe it and run a deep
> defrag program on it? Suggestions here please? Plan on starting my
> upgrade/reinstall tomorrow.

Reformatting the drive will wipe out any data you have on that drive.
Obviously with no data you will have zero fragmentation (nothing there to
fragment).

On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 22:35:58 -0700, Mark G. wrote:

> If I have a hard drive that is purely for data and no registry or
> applications exist on it but yet I am reinstalling my OS (Win XP Pro), would
> you think it is wise to completely wipe this drive provided I have backups
> of the data on it. By wiping and formatting it again in Win XP, doesn't that
> start it again back at square one with no fragmentation or can I just simple
> not wipe it and run a deep defrag program on it? Suggestions here please?
> Plan on starting my upgrade/reinstall tomorrow.

You can find detailed instructions here:

http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/XPClean.htm

or here http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XP...install.htm#RI

http://pandaman.my.contact.bg/install_Windows.htm

http://cquirke.mvps.org/reinst.htm

Need more info? Search using Google!
http://www.google.com/
(How-to: http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/basics.html )

Good luck

Mark

I would do neither unless the data drive is fragmented in which case
just run Disk Defragmenter. What is the size of the drive and how much
free disk space?

Why are you reinstalling Windows XP?


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mark G. wrote:
> If I have a hard drive that is purely for data and no registry or
> applications exist on it but yet I am reinstalling my OS (Win XP
> Pro), would you think it is wise to completely wipe this drive
> provided I have backups of the data on it. By wiping and formatting
> it again in Win XP, doesn't that start it again back at square one
> with no fragmentation or can I just simple not wipe it and run a deep
> defrag program on it? Suggestions here please? Plan on starting my
> upgrade/reinstall tomorrow.

"Mark G." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:Ou%(E-Mail Removed)...
> If I have a hard drive that is purely for data and no registry or
> applications exist on it but yet I am reinstalling my OS (Win XP Pro),
> would you think it is wise to completely wipe this drive provided I have
> backups of the data on it. By wiping and formatting it again in Win XP,
> doesn't that start it again back at square one with no fragmentation or
> can I just simple not wipe it and run a deep defrag program on it?
> Suggestions here please? Plan on starting my upgrade/reinstall tomorrow.
>

Sounds like one of those questions where the interrogative is purposely
leaving out important information for a correct answer.

If the mentioned hard drive has existed on the PC before with XP installed
and no problems exist, defrag should work fine.
Dave

You're really over-thinking this.

Just run XP's built in defrag and don't worry about it.


"Mark G." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:Ou%(E-Mail Removed)...
> If I have a hard drive that is purely for data and no registry or
> applications exist on it but yet I am reinstalling my OS (Win XP Pro),
> would you think it is wise to completely wipe this drive provided I have
> backups of the data on it. By wiping and formatting it again in Win XP,
> doesn't that start it again back at square one with no fragmentation or
> can I just simple not wipe it and run a deep defrag program on it?
> Suggestions here please? Plan on starting my upgrade/reinstall tomorrow.
>

"Mark G." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:Ou%(E-Mail Removed)...
> If I have a hard drive that is purely for data and no registry or
> applications exist on it but yet I am reinstalling my OS (Win XP Pro),
> would you think it is wise to completely wipe this drive provided I have
> backups of the data on it. By wiping and formatting it again in Win XP,
> doesn't that start it again back at square one with no fragmentation or
> can I just simple not wipe it and run a deep defrag program on it?
> Suggestions here please? Plan on starting my upgrade/reinstall tomorrow.

Re-installing an OS does not require degfragmenting.
Defragmenting does not require re-installing an OS.

Your question isn't clear.

On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 22:35:58 -0700, "Mark G." <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

> If I have a hard drive that is purely for data and no registry or
> applications exist on it but yet I am reinstalling my OS (Win XP Pro),


Let me make sure I understand your situation. You have two physical
hard drives, one containing Windows (and possibly other things) and
the second one containing only data. You want to reinstall Windows on
the first hard drive?

Is that correct?



> would
> you think it is wise to completely wipe this drive provided I have backups
> of the data on it.


Why would you want to do that? Normally reinstallation of Windows
should have nothing to do with anything independent of Windows on any
other drives.

Since I don't understand why you are even suggesting doing such a
thing, I suspect that I may be misunderstanding your question
entirely. Can you clarify what you are asking, and why you think
wiping this drive *might* be a good idea.



> By wiping and formatting it again in Win XP, doesn't that
> start it again back at square one with no fragmentation


Yes. But what does that have to do with your planned installation of
Windows? You could do the same thing any time you wanted to, without
regard to reinstalling Windows? It's just a slow clumsy way to defrag
the drive.


> or can I just simple
> not wipe it and run a deep defrag program on it? Suggestions here please?


Why not simply do a regular defrag, just as you normally might do?


> Plan on starting my upgrade/reinstall tomorrow.


By the way, why are you planning on doing this? It's usually a poor
idea, and besides being time-consuming, often gets people into a
variety of problems. If you have having Windows problems, describe
them here. It's likely that one of us can help and a reinstall won't
be necessary.

Also, what does the word "upgrade" in "upgrade/reinstall" mean? You
didn't say anything about an upgrade earlier.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
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