Hard drive cleaning

[pheasant]

The box is REALLY starting to crawl. The kids have left, and I'd like
to format and start fresh.

Debating between an external hard drive to copy everything to, format
the installed drive, adding desired programs and data back; OR just
buying another hard drive removing current one, install XP on it, then
put old hd back in as a second pulling off desired programs and data
then formatting it.

This box is 5+ years old, P4 Northwood 2GHz with 512 RDRAM and an 80GB
hd. Also pre USB2 so external drive transfer would be extremely slow.
Don't need anything newer/faster for us, and would like to tinker again
after being away from building since the Athlon Barton pre-locked core
days. Still have a couple mobile XP 2500's collecting dust.

Thanks for your ideas.

Mark

 

[peter]

You realize that no matter which method you use the programs will need to be
reinstalled........not just copied/restored from another drive.
Saved work/files /data can be copied back.
If you have a dvd you can backup all of your saved data to DVD.......then
using your retail XP CD format the HD during a new install.Once that is done
and working you will need to reinstall all of the mobo and assorted hardware
drivers...video/sound/etc.Then reinstall all of your programs..hopefully you
have the CD's for them..incuding your
anti-virus/adware/spyware..........then connect to the net and run the XP
updater
At this stage you have a "clean" machine.
If the kids are coming back and you expect them to "mess" it up again then I
would buy a new HD and clone this "new clean" installation to the new HD.
So that the next time you can just swap HD.......
peter

 

[Guest]

Is it possible to restore the HD back to factory condition without a XP cd?
My current restore point goes back only a couple of months. If I remeber, the
old 98 version gave you the opportunity to do so without the disk. My HD is
also a mess from the kids but a CD was not provided when i bought the system
3+ years ago.
Am I SOL?

Greg

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Is it possible to restore the HD back to factory condition without a XP
cd?
My current restore point goes back only a couple of months. If I remeber,
the
old 98 version gave you the opportunity to do so without the disk. My HD
is
also a mess from the kids but a CD was not provided when i bought the
system
3+ years ago.
Am I SOL?

Greg

You can't reinstall, clean or repair, without some sort of install media
that matches your install key. System Restore will not help you with
this, its purpose is different.

If there was no disk, there is probably a recovery partition. This is a
terrible concept, only slightly less bad than none at all. Its flaw, of
course, is that it depends on the hard disk being in operation, and drive
failure is one of the reasons for needing it.

Power down the system, and restart it, watching carefully as the system
restarts. You may see a message about booting for recovery.

There's a company called www.restoredisks.com that seems to offer
replacement install media for OEMs. You might check them out - I have
never used them.

If there is a recovery partition, you could clone the entire disk to a new
drive, and then run the recovery install on the new drive. Use the free
trial version of Acronis True Image, or cloning software that comes with the
drive, to do this.

HTH
-pk

 

[Ken Blake]

Is it possible to restore the HD back to factory condition without a XP
cd?
My current restore point goes back only a couple of months.

I'll answer your question, but first I wanted to address "My current restore
point goes back only a couple of months." Any restore point as old as "a
couple of months" is useless, and you should never try to restore from it.
If you do, it will undoubtedly get all sorts ofd things out of synch with
each other and create more problems than it solves.

System Restore is meant to be a quick easy way to revert your system (not
your data) to the state it was in a day or a few days ago. Effectively it's
just an easy way to undo a recent change you made. If you try to use it
formore than that, trouble will result

That's why the default amount of disk space given to SR (12% of your drive)
is *way* more than is useful.

If I remeber, the

 

[Ken Blake]

Is it possible to restore the HD back to factory condition without a XP
cd?
My current restore point goes back only a couple of months. If I remeber,
the
old 98 version gave you the opportunity to do so without the disk.

No, *no* verion of Windows lets you install without the installation media
(CD, DVD, or diskettes, depending on the version. However *some* computer
vendors ship their machines with an image on a recovery partition instead of
a CD.You'll have to check with your vendor to find out.


My HD is