Good lord is this a fucking ordeal. Backing up all My Documents (and my family's docs). Making My Norton Antivirus subscription get transferred. Checking through EVERYTHING to make sure I don't lose anything I really need. And then reinstalling all my programs/reconfiguring my firewall, windows settings, bittorrent, router, etc/dealing with Microsoft's product verification etc.


A few questions:


Is there any reason to partition my hard drive so that my system files are seperate from my documents?

Is there anything not listed above that I need to do?

partitioning is great so you'll never have to back up everything again next time you reinstall your os.

This is true. So when you partiton, can you just use Fdisk in DOS or something? Is there an option when you boot from the windows XP install CD?

you need to download a program called partition magic.

You are correct, ericd102.

When you boot from the WinXP CD, choose to install the OS, then you will be presented with partitioning options. Here is the best option: If you are positive you have backed everything up, delete all partitions on the drive. Create a ~10Gb drive (larger if you need it to be...) and make it a C: partition formatted to NTFS. Then, create the second partition as D: with the remaining unallocated space. Format this to NTFS as well (the formatting will wipe the entire drive clean... a good idea since you are doing a clean install).

Install the OS to the C: partition, and after getting it up and running, install all major apps to this drive. Keep all of your docs/games/mp3s/ etc. installed/stored on the D: partition.

This will allow the Windows cluster of files to be easily accessed by the HD making access faster. Also, the Windows files themselves become less fragmented over time. All in all, a faster experience.

(Not to mention if you ever experience a Windows meltdown, all of your important stuff will be neatly tucked away in a safe partition.)

I would much rather have a separate HD for mass storage. Programs other crap can be installed on the primary HD with the OS since they can always be reinstalled again. Whenever I reformat, I do a physical reformat, not just a quick-erase. This way, your computer pretty much starts from scratch and can run like new.

-Sunny

Well, I have reformatted. It was surprisingly painless compared to past experiences, and everything seems to be working right (still having some sound card issues but I should be able to work them out).


The most grueling part will be reinstalling and reconfiguring all my apps and settings.