Reformatting...some please help

[xxkrnxstylezxx]

Reformatting...someone please help

I wanna reformat cuz my computer being really slow and i cant fix it....i only have 5 DVD discs and about 50 gigs of stuff on my hard drive....I heard i can back up my stuff on my hard drive and then erase it later after i reformat, how would i do this??

also, is there a way to back up my hard drive so i dont have to reinstall everything again?? or do i have to reinstall every single program....thatll take a while

can someone please give me a guide to reformatting XP Home??

also do i need to do THIS?

thx alot

 

[Inaris]

well there are a couple of options here.
First; A disc imaging program might suit your needs, but I doubt it as you say there is a problem. The way this works is by making an exact copy of everything on your machine into a compressed image that can be restored at any time to another disc of what ever size as long as it is larger then the data contained within it. This might be a good solution for the back up, but I'm not sure it will save you much space. Programs like Ghost work great cause the chomp the image every 2Gb, so that you can store it on media.
Second; If you don't make an image/copy, then you will have to start over. That is the problem with starting over. If you reformat and reinstall XP then you will have no choice but to reinstall all of your apps. Besides, this is what you want to do to get rid of any problems that were present anyway.
Third; That link describes in detail everything you need to do for the "Files and settings transfer wizard" so just follow it. It's pretty straight forward, but if you run into trouble, just ask. It would be a good idea to do it as it will capture all of your configurations to the environment, as well as files you have created in your profile.

To reformat, you should boot the system with the XP cdrom in the drive, and delete the partition that present, then create a new one and format it again. That will start the drive over. Then you need to just install XP and the rest is history...
If that doesn't work, there are several boot disks that can be downloaded to assist you.
http://www.nu2.nu/
This site has a ton of info on making boot CDs and disks.
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
has all the boot disks you could ever want. Some work better then others, but they are all here.

Good luck

 

[Hinrichisgod]

are you talking about a program along the lines of Norton's ghost software?

 

[Inaris]

yup, sure am...

 

[xxkrnxstylezxx]

ah thank you so much

but wouldnt that file transfer thing bring back the problems ?? since its like the same settigns and stuff....

 

[..>Lost<..]

worked good for me! Thanks for the question and replys!

 

[Inaris]

The File ans settings Transfer Wizard is a program that takes the configurations that you have specieified and moves the from Computer to Computer. It is possible that this will take the problems with it, but there is also the possibility that a meteor will strike you down wherer you stand... Oh, wait, still sleepy, sorry...

Most of the settings that TweakUI and simular program use are based on registry keys that change the way the system is setup. FSTW, is more for the basic stuff, ie, how your desktop looks, background, screen saver and files. It could carry over the problem, but I doubt it. and if it does, just undo the settings.

 

[xxkrnxstylezxx]

ok thx