I'm going to reformat my computer in the coming days, probably this sunday

I've done this several times before, but it's been quite a while

I'm fortunate in that I have enough hard drive space to copy the entire drive I want to format onto one of my larger data drives, so I won't losing anything, it's just the issue of getting everything reinstalled, preferences reset, drivers reinstalled, etc

any ways to make this less painful?

6/4/2007 4:19:31 PM

that isn't really a great idea

6/4/2007 4:22:09 PM

sweet, I have a hater

6/4/2007 4:23:01 PM

try out nLite, so you can cut down on some of the shit you dont want Windows to install, add drivers to the OS cd, etc
http://www.nliteos.com/

6/4/2007 4:24:08 PM

hey so why was it a bad idea? you never explained
btw, im hijacking your thread

6/4/2007 4:25:09 PM

make sure that you up-to-date anti-virus definitions so that you can install them off-line

the network installation executable of sp2 is helpful if you need it

go ahead and get everything that you need the way you like it and ghost so it is less painful next time

6/4/2007 4:26:24 PM

^^^ i love nLite...following ^ advice, get all of your drivers (sata in particular), all XP updates (i save them each time windows tells me there are new ones), and load them up into nLite...definitely download spybot, ad-aware, and NAV definitions so you can install them offline

additionally, i'm a huge fan of the way i partition my computer when i only have a single hard drive:

20-30gb for windows
2gb for page file
rest for "my documents"

minimizing drive size for windows has made a noticeable difference in speed (for me), in addition to giving the page file its own partition and setting it to never change (so it never fragments)...also, by having a "my documents" partition, everything you want to save (pictures, music, documents, etc.) is already on its own partition so next time you reformat you don't have to back up anything

6/4/2007 5:23:17 PM

Quote :

"it's just the issue of getting everything reinstalled, preferences reset, drivers reinstalled, etc"

i would use the XP files and settings transfer wizard...itll scoop up all your settings (email office, display etc) and install them on the new installation.

fyi the best way to do this is to pull out your drive, and install windows on a clean drive (new or used, whatever). then you can hook up the older one and migrate stuff from the old installation to the new easily (and at your own pace)

then, if you want to use the old drive as your primary again, simply image the new installation to your orig. drive using ghost or acronis or something like that. or you could use the opportunity of a re-installation to buy a new, faster hard drive Nice thing about imaging is you can save the iamge to use later so you don't have to reintall everything all over again.

Even if you don't do that, I would def used the transfer wizard tho.

6/4/2007 5:29:10 PM

Quote :

"additionally, i'm a huge fan of the way i partition my computer when i only have a single hard drive: 20-30gb for windows 2gb for page file rest for "my documents""

That's a really good idea. Didn't realize you can partition a section just for the page file.

6/4/2007 5:41:04 PM

i have my system set up the same way

you can redirect where the link for my documents points as well so everything works the same as if your files were on the c:

6/4/2007 6:07:16 PM

the whole problem with fixxing the size of your C partition is you may run out of space someday. 30GB is a good bit but I'd still rather not worry about it. Thats why I use one fast hdd for my OS, and one slower one for data. but i know a lot of people who partition their drives this way.

do you even need a pagefile when you have 2GB+ RAM in XP?

6/4/2007 8:57:13 PM

^ well...that's my current setup on my laptop, which only has 1gb RAM...i have 25gb set for windows and i'm only using about 12gb of it...if i need more than 10gb for windows/programs in the next year or so, i might be in trouble

i think the rule of thumb is that 2gb RAM is the point at which you can disable the page file...that said, my OS drive on my desktop is a 40gb, so it's 38gb for windows and 2gb for page file...i'm only using about 20gb for the OS/progs, so i just leave the page file there (i don't think it slows it down, does it?)

6/5/2007 9:23:40 AM