Precautions for a complete XP reinstall?

[Dogg Thang]

After all my computer trouble, I'll likely do this tomorrow night. I have all the cds ready to go.

My machine has two drives, each 120GB. Most of what I need, I have backed up to the second drive. The rest is sitting on my old iPod. Obviously, I don't want that second drive touched during this process so should I open my computer and unplug it before doing anything? When this is all done, I should be able to just plug it in and everything should read, am I right?

Outlook Express refused to export my mails but I just copied the Store folder - that should be all I need, right? I exported my Address Book and it told me it was completed without giving me any clue as to where I might find it but I guess if I have my mails I can rebuild it from them.

Everything else, like keys for my main purchased programmes I think I have. Expect, oddly enough, Norton Antivirus - I can't find anything in that programme that attaches it to me. Anyone know what the story is with Norton?

Anything else I might not have thought of?

[Concrete donkey]

Whatever you do, dont forget to copy your favourites folder. I forget everytime and have to build it up again from scratch each time.

I'd unplug the second HD drive just in case. Saves any confusion.

[EvilBoris]

Itend just to use the files and settings transfer wizard hidden away in the start menu.

It saves all your settings for outlook and a million other programs and it will collect all of you files from around your HDDs.

Save the big file somewhere then when you've reinstalled XP just load it back in again

[Dogg Thang]

Ah, I didn't know such a thing existed. Given that my computer is well and truly cacked, is there a risk that some problems might be carried over if I do that?

[charlesr]

make a list of any apps you use so you can get up to speed quickly.
Ditch norton and pay for nod32 (eset.com) - I've never looked back.

[briareos_kerensky]

My machine has two drives, each 120GB. Most of what I need, I have backed up to the second drive. The rest is sitting on my old iPod. Obviously, I don't want that second drive touched during this process so should I open my computer and unplug it before doing anything? When this is all done, I should be able to just plug it in and everything should read, am I right?

Yes, but there's no real need to it...the C: drive is always the first on the drive list and probably XP will point out that there is a previous Windows installation on that drive. Personally, the though of opening the computer, unplug all HDDs aside of the primary master (ah yes, still on a PATA system and four other HDDs, plus optical drives) and the replug them all will make me think twice about installing an OS.

Everything else, like keys for my main purchased programmes I think I have. Expect, oddly enough, Norton Antivirus - I can't find anything in that programme that attaches it to me. Anyone know what the story is with Norton?

As suggested, skip Norton for a better antivirus. I vote for Avast

Anything else I might not have thought of?

Download beforehand the SP2 if your installation CD doesn't include one and autopatcher for WinXP SP2 as well, it will save you the trouble of downloading single patches from Windows Update and a good number of reboots.

[Dogg Thang]

I don't seem to be able to find SP2. Anything on the microsoft site seems to want to direct me to an auto updater that hasn't yet led me to SP2. I have failed miserably at my quest to locate SP2.

[briareos_kerensky]

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=049C9DBE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en

[Dogg Thang]

Ah, thanks for that! Now, it does say on that page in bold - DO NOT CLICK DOWNLOAD IF YOU ARE UPDATING JUST ONE COMPUTER. I should ignore that, right? I mean, there's going to be no real major difference would there?

[babs]

No, that's the network install version. It basically has everything in it and installs what it needs. The normal one downloads it bit by bit.

[Dogg Thang]

Great, that's exactly what I need. Thanks guys.

[Dogg Thang]

Nads. I just did it - reinstalled Windows. Told it I want a fresh install over my C drive. Well, it installed but didn't format the drive so now I have a whole 'Program Files' folder full of crap that isn't installed. Should I just delete everything in there?

I couldn't find an option anywhere to format the drive. I mean, outside of just right-clicking my C drive and hitting 'format' (which I tried but it wouldn't let me).

Feck. It's also telling me my Windows Key thing is incorrect. Which it's not. Poxy computers.

[Psyduck]

There is an option. I can't remember exactly how it goes but here's my best shot:
I think it's the bit where it tells you what partitions there are on your PC, and that one of them has XP installed on it, you can choose to delete a partition and start again - that formats the drive.

[Dogg Thang]

Wow, good old Microsoft got that activated in just a minute over the phone.

Whatever was in my computer seems to be sorted with this reinstall so I'm just going to leave it as is but I think I'll delete any programme files and do a proper reinstall of each as I need them. I think that's the safest option, eh?

[Psyduck]

Yeah, that should get rid of most of the crap. Anything else that's left from the old install won't be used at least...