Paritioning after reformat Windows XP

[Backdraft11]

Overview:

I just replaced a bad PSU that also damaged my mobo and thus need to reformat and do a clean install. I have 2 internal HDDs (160GB and 500GB) and an external HDD. Before all this happened I had my OS (XP Pro) and any non-gaming programs (Office, etc.) on my 160GB drive, while most of my games as well as misc data were installed on the 500GB drive. Both drives had only one partition each.

Question:

Obviously, I would need to reformat my 160GB drive in order to do a clean install of Windows on there.

1. I was wondering would it be necessary to reinstall all the games I had on my 500GB drive, in order for them to work properly, or could I get by without reinstalling all my programs on my non-OS drive?

2. Is there a way to partition my 160GB drive so that in the event that I have to reformat Windows again, I can just do a relatively simple clean install of Windows again on one partition, while retaining all my other programs on other partition(s) and still have all those programs be working after Windows is reinstalled? Or is it optimally the best idea to, when reformatting, reinstall the OS and all programs because of the registry, etc.?

Thanks, and great forums.

 

[Binky]

Many games work fine without a full installation (e.g. just copy the folder to new machine). Programs don't always work this easily. Actually, most programs need to be reinstalled. You can however sometimes install a program again, then copy the settings from the old installation. In XP, the settings are sometimes in the program files folder for that program. In Vista/Win7, they may be in the user data folder(s). Although, many programs keep settings and data elsewhere (like the registry) which makes this more difficult.

I generally have a 20-30GB system partition with Windows and all programs on it. My games and data all reside on the other partition(s). This minimizes the size of the OS partition so that images of that drive are as small as possible. Small images mean more frequent and eaiser backups for me. Reinstallation from scratch would generlly not affect anything but the OS partition.

 

[Dahak]

1) some game may be hit or miss. you would have to try to see.

2) not in the way you think, any time windows is re-installed the program have to be re-installed. probably best to try to get a base image of the machine ie... have all your main programs installed and setup and make an image of the drive. then you would only have to restore the image and then re-install any updates or new programs since the image was made