Kids Gone-Hard drive cleaning time

[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

 

[~Mike Hollywood]

I'd go with your idea of a new drive.
I don't think the programs would work if you copied them
to the new drive, you'd have to reinstall them.
But you have the advantage of taking as long as you want to copy your data
files to your new drive before you format the old one.
Mike

 

[pheasant]

I'd go with your idea of a new drive.
I don't think the programs would work if you copied them
to the new drive, you'd have to reinstall them.
But you have the advantage of taking as long as you want to copy your data
files to your new drive before you format the old one.
Mike

I think so too. Biggest concern is how will XP react when I've replaced
the old "C" with a new one? Will it look to the new and give the old a
new letter, refuse to boot, or look back to the old and reassign the new
drive?
Last build the HD is H due to a memory card reader I'd installed before
initial boot.

 

[Don]

I think so too. Biggest concern is how will XP react when I've replaced
the old "C" with a new one? Will it look to the new and give the old a
new letter, refuse to boot, or look back to the old and reassign the new
drive?
Last build the HD is H due to a memory card reader I'd installed before
initial boot.

If you can afford it, I'd look at buying a new PC. They are really
quite inexpensive these days particularly the budget models of which I'd
classify eMachine as a budget machine. You get USB 2.0, and even serial
ATA. But if you want to stick with old Bessy, you can buy a USB2.0 pci
card, assuming you have a vacant pci slot to put it in. If you get a
new disk or not, you have to do a fresh Windows install and forget about
any installed programs on the old disk. Even if you install Windows on
a new disk, these programs will not work unless you install them on the
currently running version of Windows.

 

[sdlomi2]

I think so too. Biggest concern is how will XP react when I've replaced
the old "C" with a new one? Will it look to the new and give the old a
new letter, refuse to boot, or look back to the old and reassign the new
drive?
Last build the HD is H due to a memory card reader I'd installed before
initial boot.

Why not just buy new hd, jumper it as master, install it, format, and
install OS. Jumper old hd as slave and install it. Put YOUR proggies on
new one and transfer any data files YOU use. Let the kids use the OLD (now
'slave') hd exclusively, while you use new one exclusively. HTH, s

 

[Mark F]

Do NOT do what the poster below suggests, but something similar is OK.
See below.

Why not just buy new hd, jumper it as master, install it, format, and
install OS. Jumper old hd as slave and install it. Put YOUR proggies on
new one and transfer any data files YOU use. Let the kids use the OLD (now
'slave') hd exclusively, while you use new one exclusively. HTH, s

Do NOT have the original and new disk connected to the system at boot
time, except when making the clone. (Probably a good idea to make
sure the clone boot device will in fact be booted from before
even connecting the USB or IEEE clone target drive, just in case
your clone software CD is sick.)
.. (There are exceptions to this rule, but they are complicated.)
Instead, get an external disk box with a fast interface that doesn't
have to be connected to the system at boot time. I suggest
IEEE-1394, but USB 2.0 is OK)
Make the clone using the external interface, even though it will be
slower than the internal interface. Then move the original disk
to the external box and the new disk to the computer.