reinstalling windows xp

[Alison]

I reinstalled xp pro as a new installation because I was
trying to start over and get rid of everything on my
computer. The start menu doesn't list any programs,
either does add/remove programs. However, all the files
are still on the computer, but not My Documents. How can
I delete everything and start from scratch?

 

[Lou]

If you want super clean you can zero fill hard drive I
know with Max Blast 3 for Maxtor hard drives if you know
what hard drive you have check their website for maintance
tools. When you reinstalled did you also reformat the hard
drive to set up a new partition (if No you might try that)
as xp installs I know there is a time when it is copying
files I suspect that is where you got the stuff that
followed you to this install. May be wrong but I am
thinking if you reformat and set up new partition all
information should be lost (not copied). One more idea
maybe format to Fat32 then after install is complete
convert to NTFS at command prompt. Type help at command
prompt that will show all commands available.




Hope this helps.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

If you want super clean you can zero fill hard drive

Although you can, why would you want to? There's no advantage to
doing that.

know with Max Blast 3 for Maxtor hard drives if you know
what hard drive you have check their website for maintance
tools. When you reinstalled did you also reformat the hard
drive to set up a new partition (if No you might try that)
as xp installs I know there is a time when it is copying
files I suspect that is where you got the stuff that
followed you to this install. May be wrong but I am
thinking if you reformat and set up new partition all
information should be lost (not copied). One more idea
maybe format to Fat32 then after install is complete
convert to NTFS at command prompt.

Creating a FAT32 partition and then converting to NTFS is *not* a
good idea. Besides being extra work for nothing, it will also
probably result in 512-byte clusters instead of the normal 4K
ones; this will adversely affect performance. Although the
problem can be overcome, it's still more work, and there's no
reason to go through this.

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