windows install on new hard drive and updates

[Linda in Iowa]

My computer has been a nuisance lately and I am considering buying a new
hard drive and installing my xp home version on it so I will have a clean
drive. There seems to be so much that gets added to a hard drive that you
are not aware of and it really bogs the system. This will mean I will no
longer have my currently installed updates and service packs.
So how dows one handle updates after reinstalling the operating system? And
what about sp1, 2 and 3?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

My computer has been a nuisance lately and I am considering buying
a new hard drive and installing my xp home version on it so I will
have a clean drive. There seems to be so much that gets added to a
hard drive that you are not aware of and it really bogs the system.
This will mean I will no longer have my currently installed updates
and service packs. So how dows one handle updates after reinstalling the
operating
system? And what about sp1, 2 and 3?

Why are you buying just a new hard drive?

Do you need more space?

Could you not just wipe the drive you have and start clean that way?

If you have a Windows XP CD that is SP1a or above already (it will say on it
if it is) - then you can just download SP3 and install it.

If you do not have a CD that says it is SP1a or above on it - then you need
to either create a CD that is SP3 integrated or download SP2 and SP3 and
install them in numerical order - first thing after the machine comes up and
before ever connecting it physically to the Internet.

 

[Gerry]

Linda

Doing a clean install of Windows XP is not as easy as it sounds if you
have not done it before. You need not only to install operating system
updates but all your programmes and their updates. Third party drivers
can be difficult to reassemble, especially if there have been updates
since those on the original third party disks Do you have these original
disks? Recustomising the computer to suit your requirements can be also
be a major task because it can be difficult remembering how you did it
before.

Apart from the task itself I would guess you could be back with a slow
system much like you have now in a relatively short time. The key to
good system performance is effective housekeeping and troubleshooting.


--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[jeffareid]

So how dows one handle updates after reinstalling the operating system? And what about sp1, 2 and 3?

Before doing the reinstall, you can slipstream XP with SP3 onto a cd-rom. This
will speed up the re-install.

http://apcmag.com/how_to_create_a_bootable_xp_sp3_cd.htm

You might consider adding the new hard drive to the system instead of replacing
the old hard drive. Install a second instance of XP onto the new hard drive, and
then grab the stuff from the old hard drive as needed.

 

[Jose]

My computer has been a nuisance lately and I am considering buying a new
hard drive and installing my xp home version on it so I will have a clean
drive.  There seems to be so much that gets added to a hard drive that you
are not aware of and it really bogs the system.  This will mean I will no
longer have my currently installed updates and service packs.
So how dows one handle updates after reinstalling the operating system?  And
what about sp1, 2 and 3?

The number of things installed on your hard drive does not bog the
system down. It is the number of things that are actually running,
running inefficiently, running with problems, running when they don't
have to, etc.

If you have plenty of HDD space, why not try to figure out why your
system is bogging down and see if you can fix it?

If you replace your HDD and reinstall XP from scratch, it will just be
a matter of time before it also starts to bog down as it slowly moves
toward the same state as your current installation. Then, it will be
bogging down again.

No matter what you do, your system will never be as fast as it was on
a fresh install and it will probably never be fast enough. This is
the nature of the beast. But, you can make it run as efficiently as
possible given the hardware and software you have.