First Time in Five Years

Sux dat!

I noted that my XP hard drive was getting wonky so I went ahead and picked up a new 500 Gb Western Digital.     I did a complete re-install instead of copying everything over.  I hadn't done a re-install in awhile so I decided it was probably a good thing.  Everything went smooth, took all day but it went smooth.  And guess what, nary a problem with installing ALL my Stardock Apps with Impulse either!  I'm super happy.

Well Jimbo I suppose it had to happen sometime or other, it just never seems to happen at a good time though, best of luck with the reinstalling, patience always helps at a time like this....or bashing the harddrive against the wall a coupla times can help too, just make sure its a old harddrive, good luck

Same here Jimbo!  Fortunately I was prepared for disaster and was able to fully recover in a matter of a couple of days.   This use to take weeks due to the lack of preparation on my part.   Ok, so I was arrogant and thought it would never happen.

Now all my downloaded skins, docks, blinds, IP's, Widgets and important what-not folders are copied to my 1TB ext. drive.  If prepared, once you get your OS, peripherals, security and utilities going, the rest is gravy. 

The good thing about wiping and rebuilding is your system will run faster than ever in five years and you'll be mindful about everything you install for a while.  You'll also trip on how fast Windows boots, shuts down and run without nothing else installed.

I'm about 2 months into my rebuild and still cluck over her like a mother hen.

I could say good luck to you Jimbo, but in this case, luck's not a factor.

Kick some ass!

Cp

Yup.  I had noticed myself that I had tons of crap on my system.  No more!  It's so speedy.

Totally, all garbage is disposed!  

And mindful clucking keeps it running fast!

Yup Yup.  Had to do 2! count em' 2 full system restores in the past two weeks.  But it's running so smooth right now I'm glad it all got messed up.

Call me crazy, but I have everything backed up on DVDs and I do a complete reinstall about twice a year. It's like having a new PC. I have gotten so that I can do it with eyes closed...lol. 

Call you smart! 

To the letter, this is a Golden Rule of Thumb to good PC housekeeping, handed down through the generations of processors since the popularity of the home computer exploded with the 286.   

And it doesn't matter what the backup media source may be.  They all have a level of risks from wear and age.

We should all be this wise.

once in past .... my pc got crushed 5 times in a month .....

Wonky Harddrive. Wasn't that one of Benny Hill's characters? Or was that Wonky the Flacid, I'm thinking about?

Crushed or crashed?

Thankfully, my rule is simple:

• I put all my documents, skins, app settings, stuff, pictures, etc on Drive D. Also, I move the My Documents folder to that Drive.
• I put all my music on Drive E.
• I backup to Drive F.
• Windows XP is installed on Drive C.

And then:

• I re-install Windows XP every 6 months.
• I Clean out My Documents every week, archiving and stuff.
• Delete old backups, do online syncs and clean Drive F when I'm idle.
• Drive E is never touched.
• I've got music backups on 8 DVDs, two DVDs each backup.
• Nothing gets installed on Drive C, which is kept for Microsoft to pile it's un-customizable shit.

Life is good

similer here ..... but i dont do what u do every 6 months .....

Life is good :LOL:

Call me crazy too then PuterDude cos I do the same, like clockwork if I can manage it, sometimes in my state, its my body that needs the reinstall and the hospital do that as many times as they can get their hands on me Ha Ha, but I digress again, ja twice a year at least the six is for being so wise

I agree. I also have a 320GB external HD where I store everything...all in categories. That way, when I reinstall, everything is easy to find.   Life is definitely good! 

happened to me first time in 15 years. I am assuming I got a worm somehow. Went from having 10g left on my harddrive, to having a full hd that was ready to collapse if I didn't do something fast in less than ten minutes.

needless to say I am starting over. Didn't lose anything I couldn't replace , except the first two years of my grandbabie's life . that sucked.

I bought an external hd today and will be backing my whole disk up onto it once every couple weeks

apparently Kaspersky isn't the wonderful product it is touted to be. I now use eset security.

The 'six month rule' seems to be the consensus for I do the same thing

Wow Wulfie, losing those pics(assuming you are talking about pics) has got to be hurting

Thanks all for the encouragement by sharing your experiences.

I really appreciate them. I also appreciate some of the ideas.

I kept putting off getting an external hard drive. I got one Tuesday.

Thankfully, I did not lose any thing important or valuable.

I am considering myself lucky.

PuterDudeJim, thanks for a really good idea.

I always figured “if it is not broken, don’t fix it”.  Now, I am using your suggestion.

Along with the external hard drive I also bought a box of DVDs and I will be backing the system up this weekend and I will do a reinstall in 6 months.

Thanks again, everyone.

glad you are back up and running

WhooHoo!

Five days, not bad at all for a rebuild!

How's it running now?

I can not get over how fast it is now.

I do it in one...usually.   

Glad to help!  Runs like a new one, huh?  

We lost our computer's the same day and got them back up in the same time frame. It was four years for me though. My external drive got fried so, I lost everything except my graphics and some old backups of DesktopX folders.

Wish I could say my computer is faster but, it's actually slower. Had them install AVG which seems to be sucking the life out of it.

Missed my trading cycles this week; so, it looks like it will be a month before I can get OD.

What did you get for an external hard drive? Personally opted for 1 TB and plan to do monthly or weekly DVD burn opposed to the old when ever I felt like it.