Help me and my fucky computer

[erik]

Things "just work" way more often with Macs, though. For example, you will not have to erase your hard drive and reinstall your operating system every 6 months or year because of adware/spyware/viruses/trojans/worms/registry corruption/etc.

My computer is majorly fucky, and I'd really like to erase my hard drive and reinstall the operating system, as well as all my important programs. How do I do this, and what could possibly go awry, and how can I make sure these bad things don't happen?

[thehipcola]

Easy B/U steps:

*identify and backup all of your data onto DVD or another HD (there are many software pkg's that do this, or you can do it yourself by burning DVD's)
*you probably already have all the programs on CD or DVD, to be
installd, if not, also backup the master executables/zip/ace/rar files
that contain them, also make sure you know which drivers you've
updated and either know where to get those updates again online, or
copy them to CD/DVD

* triple check you have a copy of everything you want to put back on
your computer

*insert your chosen O/S install disc and reinstall..usually there will be an
option for you to reformat your HD or a utility that allows you to do it. If
not, creating/removing a partition will achieve the same result

Things that can go awry? Not triple checking you have everything you want to put back on your machine. I really mean check 3 times.

Otherwise, it should go relatively smoothly, and depending on how complicated your system and setup is, probably will take the better part of a weekend to get it all back up and running.

[drë]

Things "just work" way more often with Macs, though. For example, you will not have to erase your hard drive and reinstall your operating system every 6 months or year because of adware/spyware/viruses/trojans/worms/registry corruption/etc.

My computer is majorly fucky, and I'd really like to erase my hard drive and reinstall the operating system, as well as all my important programs. How do I do this, and what could possibly go awry, and how can I make sure these bad things don't happen?

if you got files and programs you don't want to delete,
you can start off by partitioning the hard drive into 2 drives.
partionmagic is a good software to do this, and you should be able to find it in a P2p network.
if you only go 1 drive, split it in 2.
leaving you with
C:
and D: (or some other letter)

backup your important files and programs you don't want to losse, into D:

insert windows xp (or 9x if your poor) CD.... reboot
follow instruction for installation.
make sure you delete, and format drive C with NTFS

rinse and repeat every 6-12 months.

[c hack]

rinse and repeat every 6-12 months.

Funny, that's about how often I need to reboot

[Jim of Seattle]

* triple check you have a copy of everything you want to put back on
your computer

Better yet, back up the entire contents of your computer. This way, if you forget something (and you will), you'll still be able to get at it. Sometimes this isn't practical, but until I could burn my own DVD's, I preferred taking my computer into a shop and spending $100 to have them do it just because I knew they were going to back everything up and put it all back in a directory on my newly reborn drive so that I could delete stuff from it myself. Actually, if you have the money, I'd recommend you let a pro handle the whole task.

[erik]

That is probably wise, but I have no money to spend on this.

[mkilly]

READ ALL OF THIS POST BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING

It's pretty easy to do with Windows XP. If you don't have a Windows XP CD give me a private message. If you do have Windows XP...

Enter your computer's BIOS. This is the thing that loads when you start your computer up. It'll probably say "Press DEL to enter BIOS" or "Press F8 to enter BIOS" or some shit like that. When you're in the BIOS you want to find out where you can adjust the boot order. What you want to do is boot from the CD-ROM before you boot from the hard drive ("C:," say).

So after you've done that and saved the new BIOS settings, put the Windows XP CD in the CD-ROM. Start your computer up and it'll be all like "dude let's setup windows XP!!!!!!" so blah blah, installing windows XP, install it to the C:, tell it you do NOT WANT TO FORMAT. You want to OVERWRITE THE EXISTING INSTALLATION IN C:\WINDOWS. So, you go ahead and do that. If you have an upgrade (as opposed to full) Windows XP CD you'll need to prove that you have Windows 98 or ME or 2000, generally by having a 98/ME/2000 CD. I think 95 also works but I might be wrong.

Remove the Windows XP CD once it's all done, and ta-da! You have a blank slate. So before you reinstall Windows, you'll want to be sure and have the installation files of all the things you want to install on hand, because your programs will likely not work anymore--or you won't have shortcuts to them, the ones that do. Everything that's in My Documents and the Desktop that you want to save you'll want to move somewhere besides My Documents and the Desktop. I'd also recommend saving anything that you really want (phone numbers, whatever) and emailing it to yourself or uploading it to your site or whatever just in case bad news goes down or you can't find it. I don't know what e-mail program you use if you use one, but for that kind of thing it generally has ways to backup and reimport the stuff when you reinstall Windows.

[drë]

READ ALL OF THIS POST BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING
Everything that's in My Documents and the Desktop that you want to save you'll want to move somewhere besides My Documents and the Desktop. I'd also recommend saving anything that you really want (phone numbers, whatever) .

Lets not forget favorites (bookmarks)..
There’s nothing worst that deleting all your IE favorites that you have slowly gather for the last 2 years..
Well ok, with the exception of death, or your mom being a striper or something…
But yeah, there’s nothing worst.

[j$]

Well ok, with the exception of death, or your mom being a striper or something…
But yeah, there’s nothing worst.

A striper? As in your mom being Meg White?

Yeah, I managed to entirely screw my home computer in January trying to upgrade, lost about 60% of my stuff (due to my CD writer saying it had worked when it hadn't) - After initial heart failure, I found it strangely liberating -

j$

[Hoblit]

Erik: Important. Make sure you have drivers for your internet access. Be it a netword card, internal modem card, or usb, etc...

It may be plug and play and Windows may already have drivers for it.

But it's very important drivers to have as if you don't have other drivers for other hardware you'll at least be able to get on the internet and dowload the other drivers.

Just a heads up from a guy who has installed Windows a gazillion times on a gazillion machines.

[jb]

Make sure you have the serial #s or other installation media for your favorite programs.

If you use Windows XP, I wonder if there's a way to download SP2 and burn it to disc so you don't have to do it later after you've reinstalled. What a hassle.

[Lunkhead]

Buy a MacMini, copy files over, download P2P app, get necessary programs, forget all the other bullshit.

[fluffy]

Erik already said he doesn't want to spend money on it.

My personal recommendation for quick and easy system-wide backup, by the way, is to get an external firewire (or USB2) hard drive. They're pretty cheap now; you can get an enclosure for $40 and then add any normal hard drive to it. For Windows there's Norton Ghost; for MacOS X there's a <a href="http://trikuare.cx/code/backup.sh">quick little mirroring script</a> I wrote (which requires the developer tools to be installed).

Backing up your data beforehand is the safest way to make sure you don't lose anything important. Unfortunately, Windows doesn't make it easy to back up individual applications (Mac OS does for the most part, though, aside from fancy ones like Final Cut and Logic which need to add extensions to the OS itself) but as long as you have a CD burner you can at least back up the files themselves. Apps can always be replaced; data cannot.

[c hack]

Lets not forget favorites (bookmarks)..
There’s nothing worst that deleting all your IE favorites that you have slowly gather for the last 2 years..
Well ok, with the exception of death, or your mom being a striper or something…
But yeah, there’s nothing worst.

http://www.furl.net

I went for too long without this sweet, free, service.

[erik]

Erik: Important. Make sure you have drivers for your internet access. Be it a netword card, internal modem card, or usb, etc...

What do I need to do to make sure I have the driver for my internet access?

[drë]

Well ok, with the exception of death, or your mom being a striper or something…
But yeah, there’s nothing worst.

A striper? As in your mom being Meg White?

j$

No, but she did raised a very poor speller.

[fluffy]

Erik: Important. Make sure you have drivers for your internet access. Be it a netword card, internal modem card, or usb, etc...

What do I need to do to make sure I have the driver for my internet access?

What do you use to get online?

[thehipcola]

http://www.furl.net

I went for too long without this sweet, free, service.

Great link c hack!

[erik]

What do I need to do to make sure I have the driver for my internet access?

What do you use to get online?

I have a wireless USB connection, the main modem thing of which is attached to my roommate's computer.

[fluffy]

By that, do you mean a USB WiFi thing?

Do you still have the driver disk for it?

[ken]

Things "just work" way more often with Macs, though. For example, you will not have to erase your hard drive and reinstall your operating system every 6 months or year because of adware/spyware/viruses/trojans/worms/registry corruption/etc.

I'm sorry, was this aimed at me?

Ken

[mkilly]

Lets not forget favorites (bookmarks)..
There’s nothing worst that deleting all your IE favorites that you have slowly gather for the last 2 years..

http://www.furl.net

I went for too long without this sweet, free, service.

I like http://del.icio.us/ more.