Righto... In W9x, the assignment of drive letter is temporary depending upon where it is in the system. In XP, an identifier is placed somewhere that marks the cloned HD as something other than "C:", and that identification is RETAINED (unless the drive is re-cloned in such a way as to prevent getting "marked") even when put into the traditional "C:" position as the only drive.
Here we've been talking about HD backups, and I just TODAY had my HD get corrupted!! Got very slow and several programs acted weird... Win2000 did a couple of scandisks with the comment about something "being dirty". Extra HD saved the day once again.
OK. My attempt at a "dummies version" of a simple fresh install without any messing around with partitions: - Back up (copy onto CD, floppy disk or extra hard drive) whatever files and folders contain your important information. At a minimum this will include the entire mydocuments folder. Be careful not to miss anything important! - Make sure you have the original CDs from whatever programs you use (Office, Word, Email etc.) ...and your operating system. Including most important of all, the CD or installation instructions from your internet provider. - If you have any driver discs that you know about (for network cards, graphics card etc.) keep them handy too. If you think you may need a driver (most of the time Windows will allocate you one automatically) for some special device and you think you've lost the CD or floppy ...go to that manufacturers web site now and search for your hardware and download the driver to be stored on floppy. But unless you've got some funky or outdated device all this talk about drivers is merely precautionary because Windows will do it for you automatically. With key files and data now backed up and CDs ready for reinstallation, let the games begin! - Re-boot your PC. As soon as it starts up, keep hitting the ESC and the DEL key one after another continuously until you hear a beep and your computer takes you to a weird blue screen with the word "BIOS" at the top. - Scroll around with the arrow keys or PgUp / PgDn keys (NOT CHANGING ANYTHING) until you find a screen and an option that talks about "startup boot device". In here, change the first startup boot device so that it says "Boot from CD". Then stick your Operating System CD in the CD drrive and click: Save and Exit the BIOS. Shut the computer down and re-start it. - The computer will now read from the CD and will say Welcome to Windows installation. It will ask if you want to format your hard drive. Say YES and let it do so. Choose NTFS as the File System (assuming you are installing Win2000 or WinXP). When it brings up an option for partitions ...if there's anything other than a C: drive, highlight and delete that partition. Then choose to format the main C: drive. - Just keep following all the instructions to load the OS! - Once done and you magically arrive at your new freshly installed windows desktop environment, before you do anything else, re-boot the PC and re-enter the BIOS (same technique as before) and change the first boot device back to Hard Drive IDE0 (it might even show the name of your hard drive manufacturer). If it doesn't boot then maybe try the option for HardDrive IDE1. Just keep trying! - Now back to the new Windows Desktop environment. Load any drivers (if asked). Re-load all your applications (Office etc.). Put back all your backed up data files (mydocuments etc). in their place using copy/paste in Windows Explorer (file manager). Install your ISP so you can connect to the internet. Immediately do a "Windows Update" (under Start Menu). You now have a beautiful new "clean" world in which your stuff now lives. I'm also of the mindset that doing this about once a year is a good idea no matter what. Kinda like changing the oil/filter on a car. Windows does weird things over time ...I don't know what ...but a fresh install always cleans the place up! There's more advanced stuff you could do, but heck, I think that the above dummies version will get you a good end result i.e. a fresh cleaned out PC that runs faster and without weird bugs. Have fun and don't blame me if you screw something up, or I forgot something incredibly important ;-)
I was trying to do a repair of the Add/Remove programs and accdg to MS knowlege base, I should run a program off of the Win 2K but I did an modify install (as opposed to clean install) by mistake. There is this 1 game which was in the system before I did this and now when I boot up the PC, a windows installer pops up every 5 seconds prompting me for a Tshirtdeluxe.msi file which is in the art software CD which I now don't have. Is there a way to tell PC to forget about that program so I can have my PC back ! Thanks in advance.
cloning is EASY in xp using ghost. all you need to do is use the "-FDSP" command line switch and it takes care of that problem. and yes, i'm talking about cloning a bootable windows xp drive... http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=286306#post286306
My success with this has been spotty, but here's what I'd do. 1. Add/Remove programs... remove the offending program 2. Control Panel/Folder Options/View... check "show hidden files" 3. Windows Search... Files and Folders... for any files/folders not deleted by Add/Remove Programs... delete them If that doesn't get it, maybe someone will tell you how to navigate the Registry to find the item to delete. It's too bad Windows doesn't have a feature to "stop looking for it?" after, say, 10 times of not responding to a query... If that doesn't get it, fresh install of the OS. Good luck.
if game available try reinstall the game then use add/remove to delete it, you may also want to check start up folder and delete any reference to this game, there was a utility to remove .msi file but I don't remember where I get it.
Wow, this is Great! Thank you very much. Here I thought I had to go into DOS modes to reformat and stuff. Glad it's not like that at all. I'm going to print out these instructions. Thanks again, Banker
You can also check out this link if you want a waffly long-winded explanation of mine! http://www.blackviper.com/Articles/OS/InstallXPHome/installxphome1.htm Remember, if you boot from a CD drive then you never need worry about that talk about floppy boot discs, DOS format commands, and such nonsense. When prompted, just remember to delete any partitions to get down to just the main C:\ one and then format it with the NTFS file system. It'll all be self-explanatory. The process will require you to re-start the PC a few times. The only mistake I ever made was one time I thought the process had finished before it really had, so I went back and changed the BIOS to say Boot from Hard Drive ...before the system was ready. Kinda messed things up so I had to re-start from the beginning. In other words, patiently wait through a few re-starts leaving the CD in the tray until the system no longer asks you to do anything(!) and you are finally staring at a new Windows desktop. THEN, once all is quiet ...go back and change the Bios setting to boot from Hard Drive. It's really very simple - I am a certified 'dummy' myself(!) But once you realise you can do it ..the next step is building your own PC which is a doddle for even a dummy. If I can do it ...anyone can. I just followed the instructions off a web site - took 30 minutes to slap the parts together and boot from CD just like described above. Cool when you use components from: http://www.endpcnoise.com/ to build yourself a totally silent box using the Nexus istyle case. Ever get annoyed with the constant hum/white noise of your current PC? Going the custom build route lets you go noiseless. And you get you full bragging rights as a PC tech expert to your "dummy" friends who now marvel at your expertise
Thanks again! I will build my next PC as a quiet one. Those types of noises do annoy me. Did you just Google for step by step instructions on building your PC? I'm trying to think about what I all want to save prior to doing the clean install. The My Documents folder is obvious. I also want to save some of my emails, and favorites from IE. I would also like to keep my Windows settings intact. Do you think that is possible? What other types of things are good to save? If I do a clean install, and then load the minimal programs I like. I would then do the Windows Update to get to the current XP status. Is there a way at that point to make a copy of that information? That way I wouldn't have to go through the Windows Update process all over again in the future. The downloading is not so bad with cable internet, but all of those reboots on top of the downloading can add up. Would there be a step by step for idiots guide available for the copying of "clean" environment above? I would guess that information would be too large to put on a CD-R. Maybe that's why everyone gets another hard drive. I'm not against buying another hard drive, if it will save me a headache in the future. Thanks again for all of your help, Banker