Reformatting

[Jenni Elizabet]

Hi all, I first posted this in the 98 area. But they told me to come in here.
I have an old Compaq Presario 5000t ( about 8 yrs old now). I have a full
version of 98se with an upgrade version of Xp pro on top. What I want to do
is to completely clear the hard drive and reinstall. Because my disk space is
gone because of all the windows updates. My hard drive is only 10gb. Computer
will only take 60gb more because of bios or motherboard. And I cant find one
any more. So, I can only clear and reinstall.

2nd) Is there a way to make the computer run windows off the external hard
drive I have? If so, then I could just unplug the 10gb and run off the 320gb
external.

 

[Ghostrider]

Replied in-line:

Hi all, I first posted this in the 98 area. But they told me to come in here.
I have an old Compaq Presario 5000t ( about 8 yrs old now). I have a full
version of 98se with an upgrade version of Xp pro on top. What I want to do
is to completely clear the hard drive and reinstall. Because my disk space is
gone because of all the windows updates. My hard drive is only 10gb. Computer
will only take 60gb more because of bios or motherboard. And I cant find one
any more. So, I can only clear and reinstall.

True, 60 GB hard drives are rare. Newegg has a few of 80 GB ones:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...014+103530096+1035907789+1035307792&name=80GB

and a couple of 40 GB:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...014+103530096+1035907789+1035307798&name=40GB

It is not going to matter much with the 80 GB drives since the bios
will only allow them to be set up for 60 GB and formatted to that
size. And I presume that HP-Compaq's stock of replacement 60 GB drives
have ran out.

2nd) Is there a way to make the computer run windows off the external hard
drive I have? If so, then I could just unplug the 10gb and run off the 320gb
external.

No. But it might be possible to install applications on to the 320 GB
external drive and run them from there.

Failing that, consider putting in two 40 GB hard drives as Master and
Slave for a total of 80 GB. Or, cloning the 10 GB drive on to a 40 GB.
There is a number of possibilities. HTH.

 

[Doug Knox - [MS-MVP]]

See www.dougknox.com, Win XP Utilities, Remove Hotfix Backup Files. This
will free up all the space used by OS hotfixes.

 

[Ron Badour]

Hi Jenni

I don't understand what you think you are going to gain by formatting and
reinstalling the system. If all the room on the 10 gb drive was taken by
the Windows XP updates, once you reinstall the system and load the updates,
the drive free space will again be used up, won't it?

You say: "My hard drive is only 10gb. Computer will only take 60gb more
because of bios or motherboard." I don't understand what you mean.

Do you have programs installed on C: drive that could be uninstalled and
reinstalled on the external drive? Are there programs not being used that
you can dump? If you use Outlook Express, have you moved the OE Store to
the external drive? In the Windows folder, have you deleted the files that
start with $ and are blue colored (these are the uninstall files for the
updates)? If you use IE, have you limited the size of the temporary
internet file cache? You could turn off the recycle bin so that deleted
files are not retained (you have to be sure about your deletions though).
Have you dumped all the files in the temp folder(s)? I think you could
probably move the paging file to the external drive <
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307886 >

 

[Jenni Elizabet]

Thanks you guys. Ron. What I mean first by formatting and reinstall, is when
I do this time I plan to keep windows update off. See, it only came with a
10gb hard drive total. Remember 8 yrs old. And another reason is my daughter
messed up my first install when she deleted some of windows. When I had some
one fix it, he couldnt get the old version off, so it has 2 versions of 98se
with XP upgrades on them. And there are a few programs, that I tried to
remove but it wont let them go.
As my computer is old, and theough Compaq I also found out its a CTO as
well.
( Configure to order). I want to do the format and reinstall to get a fresh
start with only one version and all the other off, and leave win Update off.
When I do, Ill do the moving od the outlook paging and the Spool folder to
external then.