Time for a reformat...

[Slater]

Ok, so, this desktop is about 3 years old, but boy have I trashed it... unused programs everywhere slowing things down. I've tried cleaning it up manually, but... well, it didn't work out well at all. It's still crap.

So I've loaded up on DVD-Rs and am backing up my data. As a member of the MSDN, I have a free copy of WinXP Pro ready to go, too. As far as keeping my beloved files and (well, not-so-beloved-but-gotten-used-to) OS, I'm good

However, I'm wondering... what else to I need to take into consideration when doing this thing? Like, after I reformat, will my CD and DVD drives still work, or will I need to do something fancy to get that up?

I just don't wanna get stuck after reformatting. Never done this before, so... yeah... a little advice, pl0x ^___^

[rsnumber2]

Since you're using XPpro, you should be good to go. The only things you may have trouble with is, of course, reloading peripherals. Is your computer a home built, or a Dell, hp or something like the latter? I reformatted my dad's Dell Dimension after two years of service, and other than Windows updates, the only thing that I had to do was load the printer drivers. And, shudder, AOL. If you have any problems let me know.

As a side note, I generally partion my harddrive. I use a Data partition, and a OS partition. I'm not sure if it makes that big a difference, but it helps me sleep at night....

[Slater]

It's *shudders* an eMachine.

BTW, no. I'm using XP Home edition right now. I wanna switch over to XP Pro since... well... I don't have XPHome available to me...

My dad kinda tossed the recovery disks and such that came with our computers --;

[rsnumber2]

That's what I meant, you will be using XP pro. eMachines should have drivers of anything odd on their website. But overall, I think you will be fine. The reason I partition my data, is that I could theoretically reinstall my OS and keep my data safe, in case I forget to back up.

[Valkaiser]

I would second the suggestion to partition the hard drive, that way you won't have to bother with DVD-R's and the like the next time you reformat. Personally, I reformat around once every two months, keeps my computer running smoothly and permanently kills any lurking malicious code buildup in the OS.

[Slater]

aha... and how do I go about partitioning?

[Valkaiser]

Get a bootable CD image such as this, burn it, and use the partition management tools to create 2 partitions (this also wipes your disk). I don't know what size your drive is, but when you have space to burn I would say that a 10GB OS partition would be plenty big. If you're strapped for space you could get away with 5GB, I haven't had much experience trying to squeeze it that small though. The process above will also take care of the reformat, just make sure that you use the tools to create a file system (FAT32 or NTFS, whatever you've been using) on both partitions.

[Slater]

thanks :3

well darn it, I downloaded the supposed WinXP Pro ISO image, and it turned out to be some strange file only 400kb long with no file extension... D:

I guess I shouldn't be surprised since MSDN has screwed up download links before.