So Proud

[Caged]

I just reformatted my first hard drive...was very nervous when I began as I was unsure as to whether or not I had everything I needed. Computer has never worked better. I really have you guys to thank as in another thread, you made me rethink whether or not it would be a wise decision. Thx everybody! :cheers:

[wendymaree]

I've heard people say that you should reformat your computer every year/2 years even if nothing major is wrong. Apparently it helps eradicate potential problems and fine-tunes the registry which grows massive and unyieldy after a while.

[The Niles]

There are less drastic ways to keep you computer up to speed. Clean out the registry once in while by hand. You do need to know what you are doing if you want to do that and it still leaves a lot of junk in the windows directory (mostly unused .dll's) that slow down everything. If only programmers would clean up more after themselves. Computers would be twice as fast today if programs were fine tuned to the maximum possible.

[FreeFreddy]

Still you wouldn't need to reformat the HD. Just backup anything worthy somewhere and delete anything from your HD. Best through getting the Norton Commander here on the site and after that rebooting the PC and pressing F5, and if that doesn't work, F8, shortly before the boot begins. That drops to Dos and you can start the Norton Commander. Just enable there option to see hidden and system files and delete anything, including the commander. Then simply re-install Windows('s). No much time-taking formatting needed. ;)

[Caged]

:blink: why is it that everyone suggests the helpful things after the fact? :blink:

[Yamcha]

Good but don't get too excited :angel:

[FreeFreddy]

Originally posted by Caged@Nov 26 2004, 05:31 PM
:blink: why is it that everyone suggests the helpful things after the fact? :blink:
Did you ever hear of this proverb: people care about you only when you just died? ;)
Not that it's in my case like that, but I just thought on posting about easier way to do this when I read that you formatted your HD. Didn't know that before. :whistle:

[TaloN]

i format my pc every 6months. often due to the amount i upgrade various parts etc. and just plain the amount of work i do.

[Ioncannon]

I format my pc every 2 weeks LOL!!!!!! :bleh: . Why? Cause Micro$oft piece of crap fails on me. That and my psu, hdd, and motherboard are dieing.

[Razor2]

Do you guys do this with XP? Before that I did the same with W98SE, but XP works fine with some regcleaning now and then.

[Unknown Hero]

Does anybody know this:
- I have two operating systems c: win98; and e: winXP. (d: is everything else).
- what will happen if I format e: and reinstall winXP?
- will I still have option to go to win98 or my PC will directly go to winXP?

Once I had similar problem, but I don't remember which OS I installed first to get both working!

[Rogue]

If you reformat E, you should not have any problems, except delete one line from boot.ini file on C partition (it will be doubled after you install second time XP on that drive). Only problem you’ll get is if you try to reinstall C drive (Win98). But that’s possible to, with some tweaking.

I often did whole reformat/reinstall process with Win2K/Win9X, but just week or so ago I reinstalled first time XP, and that was after I got another HD, and did not like to use 'ghost disk'.

[Unknown Hero]

Originally posted by Anubis@Nov 29 2004, 08:18 PM
If you reformat E, you should not have any problems, except delete one line from boot.ini file on C partition (it will be doubled after you install second time XP on that drive). Only problem you’ll get is if you try to reinstall C drive (Win98). But that’s possible to, with some tweaking.

I often did whole reformat/reinstall process with Win2K/Win9X, but just week or so ago I reinstalled first time XP, and that was after I got another HD, and did not like to use 'ghost disk'.
I am not going to install winXP on C:
On C: I have win98
And I will install winXP on E:
What did you mean with this? :blink: :crazy:

[Rogue]

If you will reinstall XP on E drive, you will not have any problems.

Only thing that will happen is that you will have another option when you start OS (at the boot time) for XP. (Right now you got two or more options, boot in Win98 or WinXP. With new install you will get another line added to existing ones).

EDIT:

boot.ini (if I'm not mistaken) is file on C drive which represents boot menu. Changing this file will efect boot menu options.

[Unknown Hero]

Thank you! I will do it (not now of course)!

[FreeFreddy]

It's actually more simple: just install Windows 98 first (no matter which drive) and after that Windows XP. Windows XP will then notice Windows 98 and include it in the boot-menu automatically. That's it. :ok:
Just don't forget to delete anything on the drives that has to do with the operating systems there. Including boot.ini.

[Rogue]

Originally posted by FreeFreddy@Nov 29 2004, 02:54 PM
It's actually more simple: just install Windows 98 first (no matter which drive) and after that Windows XP. Windows XP will then notice Windows 98 and include it in the boot-menu automatically. That's it. :ok:
Just don't forget to delete anything on the drives that has to do with the operating systems there. Including boot.ini.
I think he likes to leave intact his win98 partition.

[Unknown Hero]

Thanks! I will wait for weekend and then format it! :bye:

[Rogue]

Don't forget to get all latest drivers for your hardware. (every single peace of hardware)

Having right drivers solves a lot of problem with XP

[Unknown Hero]

I just go to the windows update and get there my latest drivers!

[Rogue]

Some stuff will not be then updated, if driver is not certified by microsoft.

ALso some stuff my end up with wrong driver.

For example, my video card has NVidia chip, but it's Asus video card, so windows update loads NVidia driver, which don't use all features of mine video card.

[Unknown Hero]

my modem is nortek, and is working with xy (don't know which) drivers.

[Rogue]

Friend of mine had problem with modem driver. it was recognized as generic modem, but later his computer will reboot without any good reason.

He uses Linux on the same computer, and there were no problems, so he just took modem out, and computer worked fine.

Try that. You might not need to reinstall at all. ;)

[Unknown Hero]

hmmm
I realised that I have problems when changing resolutions (computer restarts).
Also my modem disconnects every few in a little while (I hope those are correct words - if not correct me so that I can learn that phrase).