Ramsinks

Formatting Drive - Fresh Install
XP Home and Pro

** I am not responsible for use of any software or computer settings. These are recommendations by me, that is all they are. **

This walk through will guide you through the most efficient way of re-installing Windows XP. If you purchased a new hard drive, have a bad hard drive or just need a "fresh" install of XP - your at the right place.

Depending on what hardware you have available or what you plan on using your system for, your instructions can be different so choose one of the following that best describes your needs. If you just need custom partitioning software get it here for free.

Just want to do a "clean install" with my current drive (1 HDD)

Purchased a new HDD because my current one died (1 HDD)

Purchased a new HDD to go "with" my existing one. (2 HDD's)

Want to do a "clean install" with my current drive, I have a second drive also (2 HDD's)

"Clean install" with my current drive (1 HDD):

1) The first thing that needs to be done is a virus scan. We don't want to backup any virus's or worms (If you don't care about backing up, skip to step #4 ). If you have an up-to-date virus scanner - use it now (update if needed). If you do not have an up-to-date virus scanner, Right-click any icons next to the clock and exit (kill) them. Now click here and scan for free. Delete anything "bad" that is found. Now install and run Ad-Aware. Run this and delete all bad items.

2) Preparing to backup files. Right-click on the desktop and select new, folder. Call this folder "backup" or whatever name you want. To locate the first important files: right-click my computer, explore, C: drive, Documents and Settings, your user name (not administrator, not all users). In this folder you will find cookies, favorites and My Documents. Right-click cookies folder and say "copy", go into that "backup" folder that we made on the desktop and right-click in there and say "paste". Now do the same with favorites. Or you could just drag them both to the "backup" folder since your not going to need them there after we get done. Now all your website address and cookies to login are saved. My documents folder may need to be backed up. This comes down to how you saved/used your data. Look around in My documents and if there's anything you need just drag it into the "backup" folder. The rest of backing up is up to you. Your not going to need applications, just the files that applications made. So make sure you get all your pictures, saved Word documents, saved game files, music etc. Drag them all to this "backup" folder.

3) Now we need to backup the important files. If you have a CD burner that is perfect. If you do not, it might be good to find a hard drive for temporary use, just so you can plug it in as "slave" and drag-and-drop files to it. If that is not an option you could always grab a USB thumdrive to drag files too. Assuming you are using a CD burner, put a blank CD in. If the empty window pops-ups automatically, great but if not, right-click my computer, explore, and find your CD burner (D: , E: etc.) and drag the "backup" folder that we created to this empty window. Remember a blank CD only holds 650MB or 700MB of data. Make sure your "backup" folder is not larger. If it is, use more than one blank CD for the files. Burn and write the date and contents on the CD. Put it away into a save place.

You have your backup and you have your program CD's (Word, PhotoShop etc.) along with the XP CD. Say good-bye to a crappy install.

4) The next step is to make sure your PC can boot from CD. You can just put the XP CD in the CD drive, and reboot. If it does not boot from the CD, you will have to check in your BIOS settings for boot-options. Most BIOS's can be accessed when first turning on your PC and hitting a special key that will be either Esc, F1, F2 or DEL. If your not sure how to, read BIOS settings or check with the manufacture.

5) Put your XP CD in the tray, and reboot. You may get a message "Press any key to boot from CD", do that.

If you don't get any response from your keyboard during this whole process, it's because you are using a USB keyboard. You can either borrow a PS2 keyboard, or go into BIOS and "Enable USB support for DOS".

If you have a RAID or SCSI device be prepared to hit F6. However you probably don't. Now XP will load itself into RAM. It may take a while. The next step is the hit Enter to continue (all your instructions are at the bottom of the page). Next you will hit F8 to agree. Now it will show you all your partitions. We need to delete all of them. Highlight C: and hit D, then L to confirm the deletion. Do this with the other partitions if there is any.

Now there is just "Unpartitioned Space = ". Every 1000MB's, is equal to 1GIG. I recommend creating a 1GIG partition first if you have a large hard drive. This is for a swap file, and is up to you. This will just make your system a little faster. So hit C to create and type in 1000. Now scroll down to the unpartitioned space and hit C again. Leave the number that is already there, hit enter. At this point you should have a C: partition, D: partition and 8MB left over. Scroll down to D: and hit Enter to install Windows.

Some people partition more to separate Windows from games, etc. This is all up to you. For this write-up we are only working on performance. This is the way "I" do things.

Now it will want to format. DO NOT choose any of the (Quick) formats. Go down to NTFS and select it. FAT32 is faster, however not as "solid" as NTFS. The formatting process will take a while, and it will install for you after this.

I usually change to "classic mode" right away.- it's up to you. Right-click the task bar, properties,check show quick launch, start menu, classic start menu, apply.

6) Once installed set up your swap file that we created. Right-click my computer, properties, Advanced, performance -settings, Advanced, change. You will see your drives listed here. High light-drive C:, and choose no page file, set. Then high-light drive D: and set it at 1000, 1000 (minimum, maximum)- set. Reboot.

7) Do Windows updates right away. Do the "service pack" update first. Do all the critical updates next, and move on to drivers. Windows update will find your hardware and drivers you need. The only driver I do manually is the graphics driver. Windows update should have more recent drivers than any of the CD's you have/had for your hardware. You will spend a lot of time updating, rebooting, updating, rebooting. If you want to make sure you have the latest driver, go out to the hardware manufacturers website and get it.

Get your backup CD that you made, and put it in. Drag out the "backup" folder that we created. Right-click my computer, explore, C: drive, Documents and Settings, your user name. In this folder you will find cookies, favorites. Just drag the old cookies folder into this folder to over-write it. Same with favorites.

8) Once finished, make sure you head over to XP Tweak and fine-tune your install. After that is done and before you start installing large programs, I highly recommend you image your drive. You can image your drive with either Ghost or Drive Image OR use SystemRecc for free. It will take about 3-5 blank Cd's. This way, if you have a system problem, worm, virus or a hard drive failure - you won't have to do all the previous steps - ever again (apart from getting the latest XP updates).

New HDD due to my current one died (1 HDD)

1) Make sure your PC can boot from CD. You can just put the XP CD in the CD drive, and reboot. If it does not boot from the CD, you will have to check in your BIOS settings for boot-options. Most BIOS's can be accessed when first turning on your PC and hitting a special key that will be either Esc, F1, F2 or DEL. If your not sure how to, read BIOS settings or check with the manufacture.

2) Put your XP CD in the tray, and reboot. You may get a message "Press any key to boot from CD", do that.

3) If you have a RAID or SCSI device be prepared to hit F6. However you probably don't. Now XP will load itself into RAM. It may take a while. The next step is the hit Enter to continue (all your instructions are at the bottom of the page). Next you will hit F8 to agree. Now it will show you all your partitions. We need to delete all of them. Highlight C: and hit D, then L to confirm the deletion. Do this with the other partitions if there is any.

If Windows does not see any hard drive, you will have to format the drive to be seen manually. Go to bootdisk.com and get a 98 boot disk, boot from it, type "Fdisk" and say "yes" then just format the drive. Then boot from XP CD.

4) Now there is just "Unpartitioned Space = ". Every 1000MB's, is equal to 1GIG. I recommend creating a 1GIG partition first if you have a large hard drive. This is for a swap file, and is up to you. This will just make your system a little faster. So hit C to create and type in 1000. Now scroll down to the unpartitioned space and hit C again. Leave the number that is already there, hit enter. At this point you should have a C: partition, D: partition and 8MB left over. Scroll down to D: and hit Enter to install Windows.

Some people partition more to separate Windows from games, etc. This is all up to you. For this write-up we are only working on performance. This is the way "I" do things.

I usually change to "classic mode" right away.- it's up to you. Right-click the task bar, properties,check show quick launch, start menu, classic start menu, apply.

5) Once installed set up your swap file that we created. Right-click my computer, properties, Advanced, performance -settings, Advanced, change. You will see your drives listed here. High light-drive C:, and choose no page file, set. Then high-light drive D: and set it at 1000, 1000 (minimum, maximum)- set. Reboot.

6) Do Windows updates right away. Do the "service pack" update first. Do all the critical updates next, and move on to drivers. Windows update will find your hardware and drivers you need. The only driver I do manually is the graphics driver. Windows update should have more recent drivers than any of the CD's you have/had for your hardware. You will spend a lot of time updating, rebooting, updating, rebooting. If you want to make sure you have the latest driver, go out to the hardware manufacturers website and get it.

7) Once finished, make sure you head over to XP Tweak and fine-tune your install. After that is done and before you start installing large programs, I highly recommend you image your drive. You can image your drive with either Ghost or Drive Image OR use SystemRecc for free. It will take about 3-5 blank Cd's. This way, if you have a system problem, worm, virus or a hard drive failure - you won't have to do all the previous steps - ever again (apart from getting the latest XP updates).

New HDD to go "with" my existing one. (2 HDD's):

1) The first thing that needs to be done is a virus scan. We don't want to backup any virus's or worms. (If you don't care about backing up, skip to step #4). If you have an up-to-date virus scanner - use it now (update if needed). If you do not have an up-to-date virus scanner, Right-click any icons next to the clock and exit (kill) them. Now click here and scan for free. Delete anything "bad" that is found. Now install and run Ad-Aware. Run this and delete all bad items.

3) Turn off you PC, and plug up your new HDD however you plan on doing it. Set it as a "slave" (or "master").

Boot into Windows and let it format the new drive. Now just drag this "backup" folder to your slave hard drive (or just burn backup to a CD or thumdrive). Right-click my computer, explore, find your drive and drag and drop. This will make a "copy", so don't worry about the folder that stayed behind on your desktop.

You have your backup and you have your program CD's (Word, PhotoShop etc.) along with the XP CD. Say good-bye to a crappy install.

5) Put your XP CD in the tray, and reboot. You may get a message "Press any key to boot from CD", do that.

If you have a RAID or SCSI device be prepared to hit F6. However you probably don't. Now XP will load itself into RAM. It may take a while. The next step is the hit Enter to continue (all your instructions are at the bottom of the page). Next you will hit F8 to agree. Now it will show you all your partitions. Drive D: is where out backup is. But we need to delete C:. Highlight C: and hit D, then L to confirm the deletion.

Now there is just "Unpartitioned Space = ", and your D: drive. Every 1000MB's, is equal to 1GIG. So highlight unpartitioned space and C to create. Leave the number that is already there, hit enter. At this point you should have a C: partition, D: partition and 8MB left over. Scroll down to C: and hit Enter to install Windows.

Some people partition more to separate Windows from games, etc. This is all up to you. For this write-up we are only working on performance. This is the way "I" do things. With two physical drives, you will get even better performance from putting your swap on the slave drive.

Now it will want to format. DO NOT choose any of the (Quick) formats. Go down to NTFS and select it. FAT32 is faster, however not as "solid". The formatting process will take a while, and it will install for you after this.

I usually change to "classic mode" right away.- it's up to you. Right-click the task bar, properties,check show quick launch, start menu, classic start menu, apply.

6) Once installed set up your swap file on drive D: . Right-click my computer, properties, Advanced, performance -settings, Advanced, change. You will see your drives listed here. High light-drive C:, and choose no page file, set. Then high-light drive D: and set it at 1000, 1000 (minimum, maximum)- set. Reboot.

8) Go to your D: drive and drag out the "backup" folder that we created. Right-click my computer, explore, C: drive, Documents and Settings, your user name. In this folder you will find cookies, favorites. Just drag the old cookies folder into this folder to over-write it. Same with favorites.

Once finished, make sure you head over to XP Tweak and fine-tune your install. After that is done and before you start installing large programs, I highly recommend you image your drive. You can image your drive with either Ghost or Drive Image OR use SystemRecc for free. It will take about 3-5 blank Cd's. This way, if you have a system problem, worm, virus or a hard drive failure - you won't have to do all the previous steps - ever again (apart from getting the latest XP updates).

"Clean install" with my current drive, I have a second drive also (2 HDD's):

3) Now just drag this "backup" folder to your secondary hard drive (D:) (or just burn backup to a CD or thumdrive). Right-click my computer, explore, find your drive and drag and drop. This will make a "copy", so don't worry about the folder that stayed behind on your desktop.

You have your backup and you have your program CD's (Word, PhotoShop etc.) along with the XP CD. Say good-bye to a crappy install.

5) Put your XP CD in the tray, and reboot. You may get a message "Press any key to boot from CD", do that.

If you have a RAID or SCSI device be prepared to hit F6. However you probably don't. Now XP will load itself into RAM. It may take a while. The next step is the hit Enter to continue (all your instructions are at the bottom of the page). Next you will hit F8 to agree. Now it will show you all your partitions. Drive D: is where out backup is. But we need to delete C:. Highlight C: and hit D, then L to confirm the deletion.

I usually change to "classic mode" right away.- it's up to you. Right-click the task bar, properties,check show quick launch, start menu, classic start menu, apply.

Once finished, make sure you head over to XP Tweak and fine-tune your install. After that is done and before you start installing large programs, I highly recommend you image your drive. You can image your drive with either Ghost or Drive Image OR use SystemRecc for free. It will take about 3-5 blank Cd's. This way, if you have a system problem, worm, virus or a hard drive failure - you won't have to do all the previous steps - ever again (apart from getting the latest XP updates).

Burke~

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