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wiping hard drive / XP sp2

R

Rickyohead

Member
I'm in the process of a major upgrade (see sig). What I need to do now that the major hardware is installed is backup my files (80gig HD is 75% full), format my hard drive, fresh install of Windows XP, download critical updates, restore and reinstall files/apps.

What methods do you recommend to accomplish this smoothly? Should I get an imaging program like Norton Ghost 9? It would take me days to burn CDs individually. Also, should I write 0s to the disk before a fresh install of windows XP?

I'll make sure to uninstall programs I have install CDs for and get rid of unnecessary data before backing up. Any advice is appreciated.
 
I have my OS on a small (3.7G) partition. All my data and programs are on another partition.
In a situation like this, I would have none of your worries. You may want to consider that for the next time.

One solution may be to use a utility like Partition Magic to resize the partition (I am assuming that you only have one hard drive) you have now and move it to make room for a new partition at the begining of the hard drive. Then, you put your new rig together including this hard drive. Then, you install XP into the new free area that you created at the begining of the hard drive. Then, you can boot into this XP and all your data will be on the second partition and you can do what you want with it.
WARNING: Partition Magic is recommends backing up data before you use it. So, it defeats the purpose of this solution.

Anotehr solution would be to get a second hard drive. Install the new drive in your new rig and install XP on it. Install the old drive as slave and you will have access to all your files on the old drive.

Another solution may be to just put your new rig together with the hard drive as is. then, do a repair install of XP (I have no experience with this; have never done this).

Edit:
I don't see any benefit in writing zeros to the disk. Unless you want to sell the drive and you don't want them to be able to recover the dta that you have had on it in the past. In that case, writing zeros may not be enough.
 
thanks for the different suggestions.

I am thinking of your 2nd suggestion: buying a new hard drive and doing a fresh install on it. I like the idea of creating multiple partitions with a small partition just for the OS. Will I be able to do this with a new drive and its included software?

Then I would add my current drive as a slave and transfer the necessary files. Is this method pretty reliable and common?

I am afraid to do option 3 (doing a repair install) because I have heard of data being lost in the process (especially in secondary user accounts). I also am not sure if a repair install will correct my registry errors and windows problems that have built up over time.

what do you think?
 
I think the same as you do; getting a second hard drive has many benefits.

I don't believe you can use the utility that comes with a retail hard drive for creating and manipulating partitions. I have heard that you can use it for copying data from an old hard drive. You can download it from the web site of the manufacturer.

Let me warn you that creating partitions, even though very useful, can have some side effects too. So, you should weigh the pros and cons and decide if it is worth it for you.

Before getting into that, let me say that I think Partitioin Magic is a program that you can buy to create and manipulate partitions with.
However, I have heard of this free program that can be used for the same thing.
http://www.ranish.com/part/
May be you can try it on your new hard drive. With no data on it, you have got nothing to lose.
You can get Partition Magic from many places. This is an example.
http://store.viosoftware.biz/popa80.html
This will not be around for long since the company (PowerQuest) has been taken over by Symantec.

Possible problems of creating partitions.

You put your OS on C and all your programs and all your data (music, pictures, movies, documents etc.) on D.
Then, you create an image of C. By the way, to create images, you will need yet another utility (Drive Image, or Ghost).
Then, you use your computer for a while and in the meantime, you install some new programs on D.
Then, you need to restore the OS image to C, so you will.
All the oprograms that you installed after creating the image are still on D, but the start menu shortcuts are gone. Even if you manually place the shortcuts back, many of the programs do not run since they need dlls that are supposed to be in the system32 folder on C. But, C has been restored. Or they may need registry keys (the registry is on C) that are nonexistent.
 
thanks for pointing out those possible problems.

If i buy a new SATA drive, will I be able to install a fresh copy of windows xp pro on it and attach my curent drive a a slave to transfer files once in windows? I read somewhere about having to load SATA drivers with a floppy disc before installing a SATA drive as a master IDE device when installin windows xp....

What size partition do you recommend for just Windows XP Pro SP2? 5 GB? Is that plenty for the OS?
 
I am not sure about the SATA drivers. I have P4P800 deluxe motherboard (ASUS) and have a SATA drive with XP pro on it. I also have a PATA with data on it. I did not have to install drivers for SATA.

I know that you may need SATA drivers if you are setting up RAID.
But, if you are just installing XP on SATA, I am not sure if you definitely do not need the drivers, or if it has to do with that kind of motherboard you have.

So, my answer is if your motherboard has a SATA connector, you can install XP on it and then use the old drive and acces all the dat. You may need to install SATA drivers while you are installing XP, or you may not.

5G is plenty if you plan to store all the data and install all the programs on another partition.
If you just plan to store all the data on another partition but install all the programs on C, where XP is, 5G would not be large enough.

 
You do need the SATA drivers on a floppy during a WinXP install. During the first portion of the setup I believe you need to press F6. This needs to be done any time you are installing XP with a non-IDE controller (ex. SCSI, SATA, etc).
Maybe in the next version of Windows MS will include native support for SATA, but not yet.
 
Originally posted by: Qrilock
You do need the SATA drivers on a floppy during a WinXP install. During the first portion of the setup I believe you need to press F6. This needs to be done any time you are installing XP with a non-IDE controller (ex. SCSI, SATA, etc).
Maybe in the next version of Windows MS will include native support for SATA, but not yet.
Click to expand...

I don't believe that is always true. There are two different SATA controllers on P4P800 deluxe.
http://usa.asus.com/products/m.../p4p800-d/overview.htm
Look under "IDE RAID" and "ICH5R with integrated SATA and RAID 0, 1".
Only one of them needs drivers to be installed during XP installation. As I said, I do not need to install drivers when I install XP the way I have set it up.
 
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