Help with Reformatting Please

TripleT

TripleT

TripleT

Soldato
Joined
24 Oct 2002
Posts
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Location
Manchester City Centre
Hi there,

My computer's old and needs a good clear out, there's nothing of much value on it so I just want to reformat it. Having never done it I have a few questions.

Apologies if this doesn't make much sense, I'm not a computer wizz but I have some understanding. :o

I currently have the original 40gig hdd which is jam packed full of **** and is also were XP is installed. I also have an 80gig hdd which is actually going pretty much unused at the moment. 40gig is primary, 80gig is secondary.

I want to have the 80gig as the primary. My idea was to install XP onto the 80gig, boot from this while I make sure I have everything I want from the 40gig before wiping that and either taking it out or putting it in as the secondary drive (80gig is currently the secondary drive). Would this work? and can I then swap these around?

I'm a little concorned about getting all the required drivers back on and installed. What's the best way of doing this? Where do I get them from?

I'll probably have some more questions soon.

Cheers for any help :)
 
Whilst your PC's still working, I'd download all drivers you need from your hardware manufactures websites. Then burn all the drivers onto 1 CD. Also back up ALL data you want to keep onto CD's/DVD's.

Then I'd format both HDD's.

Does your mobo support RAID configurations? If it does (and don't forget to download the RAID driver and put it on the driver CD) you could mirror data for redundancy, if your fussed.
If you want to go down this route, you could partion the 80 gig into 2 partitions, 1 for the OS, 1 for data. Then you could mirrior the data partion onto the 2nd 40gig HDD, as RAID 1.
Or just ignore the above and have a bunch of disks.
 
As above download drivers but would try using 2 copies flash and disc maybe in case one lot is corrupted, happened to me what a pain. You can also use the Settings and Files Transfer Wizard in Accessories to save your email and settings etc.
Wouldn't wipe old disc till you know new install is O.K
 
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