Optimal partitioning for quick restore

[cscs]

Hello,

We all know that XP turns to crap after a year due to new programs, orphaned dll's and registry entries (etc etc). I'm just now doing a fresh format and wondering what you all think is the best way to partition a drive to allow for the quickest restore.

That is, I don't want to have to backup all the important bits on my drive every single time I want to reinstall XP. Is there some way to organize things so I can restore an image of the OS? I don't even really quite get how images work, I just read elsewhere that someone did this and had a fresh system in 10-15 minutes without having to back things up.

From what I understand I'd just have a C: with all the windows stuff and D: would have everything else? And then when I format I could just format the C: and reinstall there again? Wouldn't that cause problems with programs (ie, /Program Files) that were installed on the D:?

Or would it be a matter of setting up my system on the C:, programs included, somehow saving that entire drive to an image file, and then just restoring from that? Is that possible? I'm not quite sure what that entails.

Could anyone enlighten?

Thank you

 

[Nothinman]

We all know that XP turns to crap after a year due to new programs, orphaned dll's and registry entries (etc etc).

Actually, no we don't. All of my systems, including Windows, tend to run fine for years on end.

 

[cscs]

*sigh*, I knew someone would say that.

My point was that it does for me, and I know it does for many others as well.

Back on topic please...

 

[Nothinman]

The real solution is to figure out what you're doing that's causing the problems.

But if you really want to just bandaid over the problem figure out how much space you currently have used by your OS and installed programs and then add some breathing room. And yes, things installed to the non-formatted partition may not work properly after the reinstall but that varies by program so if you want to run some things from other partition you'll need to figure out which ones work without a full reinstallation and which don't.

 

[cscs]

Thanks for the input Nothinman. So what you're saying is that there's no replacement for a fresh format of the entire HD?

I guess maybe what would be ideal is to have all my non-program data (ie my code, documents, pics, vids, etc) on a separate drive and my windows/programs on c:. That way I'd just have to reinstall Windows and my progs rather than move all my personal files as well.

pita pie..

 

[Nothinman]

Thanks for the input Nothinman. So what you're saying is that there's no replacement for a fresh format of the entire HD

No. How the partitions are laid out on the disk is irrelevant, you could have a dozen partitions or just one and formatting the system partition will have affect. Some programs need reinstalled to register COM objects, shared libraries, etc so there's no way around reinstalling them unless you feel like doing that stuff yourself just to avoid a reinstallation.

 

[cscs]

Ok, thank you for the info.