Wiping the hard drive and starting over (XP)

[Rick Johnston]

As a typical home user, I was fed up with the bloat that accumulates over a period of months by incessant upgrades and security fixes that seem to bog down the machines until they're frustratingly unusable.

I'm no IT professional, but I've been around the block a few times over the past 25 years, learning WAY more than I ever wanted to know about com-pew-ters. More knowledgeable people than I can chime in here with additional info and tips (please!).

My computers get fresh installs at least once a year, and it usually takes about three hours. Here's a step-by-step for the latest wipe, which was performed on the oldest and slowest machine I own. The entire process is too much for me to write in one sitting, so it will be continued over several posts. Feel free to post comments.

The Machine:
The machine is a basic 2.3 gHz Intel with 512 of ram, circa 2003 or so. On-board video and sound. It's fine for my needs, which include basic surfing, e-mail, music, and some Youtube. Hard-wired to 1 meg DSL.

The Problem:
Over the past year I had allowed all of the programs to auto update. WinXP, Adobe, Java, Flash, Win Media Player and others were constantly pinging their home sites, causing extreme slowdowns.

The machine became so bloated that it took nearly three minutes to cold boot and 15 or 20 seconds to launch each program. Internet speed tests on several sites showed that my 1-meg DSL was being cut to less than 500kbps. Youtubes had to be paused until at least half of a video was downloaded before I could play them through without glitches.

In July I downloaded Firefox, which solved some of the speed problems. I liked it better than IE so I also installed it on the other two machines in my house. Everything was cool until, a week later, WinXP did an "upgrade" that negated that increased speed. (This happened at exactly the same time on all three machines in my house. Hmmm ...)

I applied every trick I knew -- and some I found by searching -- to increase response: Disable unnecessary services. Edit System Config to prevent unneeded apps from starting. Clean the registry. Stop programs from auto-updating. But it was too late. The machine was too bloated.

Backups:
My weekly backup ritual is fairly bulletproof: All my stuff is stored on two internal hard drives under two master folders: Data and Media. I drag 'n' drop these folders (plus my Bookmarks and e-mail profile & address book) to one of two 340-gig USB drives that rotate every week between home and work.

The Data folder includes a subfolder called "Sources" to which I've copied all of my progam CDs, serial numbers, motherboard drivers, printer drivers, and anything else the computer needs. Firefox and other downloaded program files are also kept there.

More Ram:
It was relatively painless to toss in another 1-gig of ram ($25 from Newegg), so I did this just before I wiped the drive. After I rebooted to verify that the machine recognized the ram, I shut down.

Wiping the Drive:
I shut off the modem, inserted the WinXP CD into the drive, and turned on the machine. I let Windows do its thing for an hour or so, which included formatting the C drive.

Initializing the Install:
When the install was finished, it tried to get on the net to do its upgrades. I had turned off the modem so it couldn't find a connection. I then plugged in the USB drive and loaded the motherboard drivers and XP SP3.

[rbwest]

Sounds like the same thing I have been doing for the past so many years. The one thing that I have done which most people would consider tedious is that I create a couple of DVD images during the process.

First I would have a disk with certain up-to-date programs such as AVG antivirus. All my data has been backed up either on an external drive or DVD. Then I would make sure that there are no bugs in the MBR by running a boot program called Zap. It wipes out the boot sector on the drive. Then I would place XP in the CD/DVD and go thru the boot process, which does the formatting etc. Once it is up and running, drivers for your hardware installed, and XP is activated, I would then create an image.

That image would be in case you decided to use a different antivirus program.

Next, install the antivirus program, plug in the internet and do the updates for it as well as a custom upgrade to XP.

I do not install SP3 or Internet explorer 7 in the updates.
Found out that with SP3, they (Microsoft) disabled certain functions. One was that if you right click on the screen, do a properties, click the Desktop tab, then click the Customize desktop button, you will find the options of placing certain icons (programs) on your desktop.
If you install SP3, then the Internet Explorer option is not there. For those who like to just right click on the icon, and do properties to let say empty the cache and cookies, well you would have to run the program in order to do that with SP3. This way you don't as the icon that is placed on your desktop is not a shortcut.

Ok enough rant of SP3 and on goes the reason for imaging.
You now are up to date with windows and your antivirus.
The display is set how you like it. You have configured your mail, even put your favorites in from your data backups. All is good. Do another image. All are labeled such so that you know which ones have what. Now you could of just loaded all your programs, but this way, if you decide to fall back to this moment if you had to do a re-install and wanted different programs, then that is the reason for this image.

Next would be to complete your installs with all the programs you want on the computer. Everything is up to date with program upgrades and configured the way you like it. Any data from the backups that you want on the computer is put on. Now do your last image. This one would be used if you still like the current setup you have and wish to start fresh every year or in case the hard drive packs it in.

Having the stepped images may not be for everyone, but if your the type of person who likes to change things around, like use a different antivirus program or office package, then this would defiantly help as it reduces the amount to time getting updates, and configuration.

There are many image programs out there. The ones I have used are Ghost and Terabyte. Always backup your data so there's minimal loss in case a drive packs it in or a virus totally corrupts the system where all is lost.

[xbank]

I have a compaq presario 256 ram 100 gig hard drive windows xp os. This computer is painfully slow. I have done a full backup on a maxtor external hard drive so I won't lose pictures ect. Now I want to wipe the hard drive clean and reload the OS. How do I do this. Thanks for any help.

[Gunguy45]

xbank...can't answer your question, but you need more memory...badly! Even with a slow processor you should have at least 1gig if it can be supported. Just starting my PC takes more than 256m or more of memory with the basic programs running.

[xbank]

gunguy... thanks for the input. I will look into upping the ram. Another reason I am trying to wipe the hard drive is I intend to give the computer to my brother (not too computer literate) and I would hope he would have minimal problems if he started fresh.

[Gunguy45]

Oh, well if you don't need to keep lots of stuff, just insert the XP disk or the original restore disk. And follow the prompts. Shouldn't be a big issue.

[LuciKnows]

Several years ago I started using a cheap software program - available on line - called Advanced System Optimizer. I use this once a week. It will absolutely cleanup your XP system - and make it run great. It also has a registry cleaner and defragger and an anti-spyware program that does not remain resident on your system, so you don't lose resources. You can get a free 15-day trial, or at least you used to be able to. You won't believe what it shows you is on your system that is useless. Hope this helps.