Installing new HD questions

[Joe S.]

Okay, here's the deal -- I have some questions about replacing my HD -- but
first ---- here's a long and boring explanation, followed by questions.

My 7-year-old HD is making the click-of-death sounds, warning me that it's
about to die. In preparation for its death, I have purchased a new HD.

I did the following:
-- Made three folders on my HD: OurStuff Vol I, OurStuff Vol II, and
OurStuff Vol III
-- I copied our docs, recipes, geneaology, and spreadsheets to Vol I;
e-mail, OE address book, and favorites to Vol II; and, three webs to Vol
III -- then, I copied these folders to three CDs, one per Vol.

-- Copied my digital photo folder to a DVD

I have my original application disks -- over the past year I purchased
brand-new full-up (not upgrade) versions of my applications. -- This gives
me the CDs for WinXP Home + SP1, Word, Excel, FrontPage 2003, Norton AV, and
the CDs for a couple of astronomy programs.

-- I purchased and downloaded ZoneAlarm Pro and the free versions of SpyBot
and AdAware. I copied the zipped versions of these to a CD.

I now have:
-- WinXp HomeEdition, with SP1 CD, full-up version (not upgrade)
-- my original application disks,
-- four CDs; one with three zipped apps, and three with all our documents,
and,
-- a DVD full of photos.

When I install the new HD, I'll boot to BIOS, tell the computer to boot to
the CD, install WinXP, install SP1, install the apps, copy the files, and be
back in business.

So -- here are my questions:

QUESTION ONE: Do I need SP2?
My daughter is a law school student. Her laptop is set up to access the
Internet through her Ethernet connection; she has a wireless card that
accesses the school's law school wireless net to get her into the Internet
from school and into six different databases they use for research. When
she tried to install SP2, her computer locked up -- SP2's security features
forced her to validate every application that tried to access networks and
it locked her up. I had warned her to make a restore point, so, she did a
system restore, wiped out SP2, and did not install it.

I am concerned at how SP2 will treat me. I have WinXP HomeEdition with the
SP1 and security upgrade CD that MS sold earlier this year. Do I need to
order the SP2 CD, or, after I install WinXP OS and the SP1, should I then go
the the MS site and install SP2 before I start installing applications? I'm
guessing that if I install SP2 before installing apps, if an app tries to
access the Internet, I can tell SP2 that it's okay for access.

If I run SP2, do I need ZoneAlarm, SpyBot, and AdAware -- or, vice versa, if
I install ZA, SpyBot, and AdAware, do I need SP2?

QUESTION TWO: Password file(s)?
As currently configured, my system has memorized the passwords I use to
access my online banking, my three webs, four newspaper online subscription
services, and a few other passwords. Are these passwords in a file that I
need to save to CD/floppy/whatever and copy to the new HD? File name?
Where should I copy it on the new HD?



QUESTION THREE: What to do with the old HD?
I plan to stick the old clicking HD in as the second HD so I can pull off of
it any files I may have overlooked, at least until it dies -- do I need to
delete the Windows folder from the old HD so the system does not try to boot
to it?

What do you wise ladies and gentlemen recommend?

THANK YOU.

 

[Alex Nichol]

When I install the new HD, I'll boot to BIOS, tell the computer to boot to
the CD, install WinXP, install SP1, install the apps, copy the files, and be
back in business.

You might consider installing the new drive as a slave and doing a
'clone' copy to it, to save all the problems of reinstalling everything.
What I use is BootIT NG, from http://www.BootitNG.com ($35 shareware -
30 day full functional trial)

There is no need to install in its Boot Manager role; cancel that and
enter Maintenance Partition work. There you can highlight and cut;
change to the other drive and paste, resize up if desired, then click
MBR and use 'Write code'. Swap the new drive to be the master and all
should carry on

QUESTION ONE: Do I need SP2?
My daughter is a law school student. Her laptop is set up to access the
Internet through her Ethernet connection; she has a wireless card that
accesses the school's law school wireless net to get her into the Internet
from school and into six different databases they use for research. When
she tried to install SP2, her computer locked up -- SP2's security features
forced her to validate every application that tried to access networks and
it locked her up. I had warned her to make a restore point, so, she did a
system restore, wiped out SP2, and did not install it.

There is no need to use the SP2 firewall if it is obstructive. But
these days you *must* use a firewall, SP2's or a third party one like
Zone Alarm or the machine is seriously at risk. If you go ahead on a
clean install of |XP, I would have one of the SP2 free CDs to hand and
run that as first action on completing setup. SP2 improves Wireless
networking connection considerably; the cause of lockup is probably
unrelated

 

[Rock]

install ZA, SpyBot, and AdAware, do I need SP2?

QUESTION TWO: Password file(s)?
As currently configured, my system has memorized the passwords I use to
access my online banking, my three webs, four newspaper online subscription
services, and a few other passwords. Are these passwords in a file that I
need to save to CD/floppy/whatever and copy to the new HD? File name?
Where should I copy it on the new HD?

If you clone or ghost the drive using some type of disk imaging
software, such as BootItNG, Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image, then the
passwords go with it.