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Reformat / reinstall XP

Discussion in 'Whatnots' started by Intentioner of the Damned, Nov 20, 2002.

  1. Intentioner of the Damned Gems: 14/31
    Latest gem: Chrysoberyl

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    [​IMG] Hey, does anyone know roughly how long it will take to reformat my 60gb hard disk and then install Windows XP? It would be nice to have a rough idea before i start so i can plan it all out.

    Also, is it possible to see the numbers that i entered to activate windows before (so i don't have to bother phoning that annoying setup line again)?

    Thanks for any help you can throw at me!
     
    Intentioner of the Damned, Nov 20, 2002
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  2. Turambar Gems: 13/31
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    If there are no problems and you have all drivers and such available, it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours...

    If you are happy with the layout of your system the way it is now you could also make an image of it and then just install the image after formatting.

    About the numbers, I don't think you can see them anywhere.
     
    Turambar, Nov 20, 2002
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  3. Intentioner of the Damned Gems: 14/31
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    Will an image carry over any driver conflicts??
     
    Intentioner of the Damned, Nov 20, 2002
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  4. Turambar Gems: 13/31
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    It probably will, but if that's the reason you are formatting there probably are better ways to correct your problem...
     
    Turambar, Nov 20, 2002
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  5. Nutrimat Gems: 12/31
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    I don't have XP, but I have a 60GB hard drive that I reformatted a couple of weeks ago.

    Total time to reformat and reinstall everything: about 3 hours.

    Make sure you back up:
    * Favorites folder
    * My Documents, my pictures, etc.
    * Any patches, drivers, or setup files you've downloaded (I usually save all these in a folder in my desktop in case I need to reinstall)
    * Save game files you want to keep
    * mp3's
    * custom fonts, icons, screen savers
    * emails (either export your email to a folder, and then back it up, or email it to yourself, then do a "send all" not "send/receive all")
    * Make sure you know what your settings for email, ISP connections, etc are. I once did a reformat, then realized I should have looked up and wrote down some of my settings first. It would have saved me an hour on the phone with my ISP.

    As Turambar said, doing a "restore" can also restore any problems you've had. I prefer to start from scratch. It's a bit more work to set everything up, but it's cleaner that way.
     
    Nutrimat, Nov 20, 2002
    #5

  6. Intentioner of the Damned Gems: 14/31
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    I tried to do a repair to start with but my pc kept crashing at the same point, and then wouldnt start as xp was only partly installed. So i deleted my existing partition and formatted it, and then started xp from scratch.

    The longest part was backing up my mp3s onto re-writable cd's - coz they are only 4x cdrw so took forever to write, and forever to put them back on afterwards.

    It is nice to have a fresh disk though. Plus, now i now what all the disks that came with my computer are for (some of them didn't explicitly say on them what program / drivers were on them).

    Including writing the cd's it took about 6hours (3 writing, 3 reformat/install).
     
    Intentioner of the Damned, Nov 21, 2002
    #6
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