I need to wipe my xp machine and reinstall Xp, what's the best way? the machine is a mess!?

Question

Hi dudes, hope all is well. I'm wiping a network machine, I want a fresh start, there's so much rubbish on there, what's the best way to do it? Should I back up all my drivers first? If so, what's the easiest way of doing this? I have a USB stick. I've got active Killdisk but I figure that's more for wiping machines before you sell them and I'd have to manually find the drivers or hope that windows sorts them out for me over the net. And what about my network settings, how can I check them/what do I need to make sure I have right for after the wipe? I really don't wanna get it wrong! Thanks so much, really hope you are all good,

all the best,

marcbolanboy

Answer 1

backup and put the reload discs that came with your pc... and then abracadabra you've got a new pc..

Answer 2

reinstalling an OS isn't something to be thought of lightly. Make sure you backup everything, first. I mean: everything, not just the drivers, but also all files you've created yourself, or else you'll find yourself with a crisp new install without your correspondence, movies, music and so on!
As far as the drivers are concerned: if you have downloaded these from the internet, make sure you back these up as well. Backing up installed drivers won't work: you'll miss the installation files.
Goto Start - Settings - Configuration Panel - System. Open the Hardware tab, click the button that guides you to your hardware. Doubleclick the videocard, to see which driver it uses (tab Drivers), write down the name of both the videocard and the driver. Write down the name and the driver of your network card. See if you can download these before you wipe your harddrive.
Goto Start - Settings - Configuration Panel - Network Settings. Right click the network interface card and select Properties. In the screen that opens, select TCP/IP and click Properties. Write down the settings of your network card (if it's all DHCP assigned, then you won't need to since this is a default setting of Windows XP). Check if you still have CDs with the drivers of other components of your PC (like the motherboard).
Put the WindowsXP CD in, reboot your PC, and start the reinstall. When asked, tell it to use the entire harddrive. Or, alternatively, you can choose to have WindowsXP installed in a seperate, new, directory.

Answer 3

You could do a few ways, either format the drive to wipe everything, all data etc!
Or you could insert the boot disk, and then restart the computer start via CD, and reinstall windows XP, is it genuinen version of windows XP?

keep me posted!

[e-mail]

Answer 4

Try System Restore before you do anything drastic. Go back to a time when your PC was performing well.

Answer 5

make sure you have all the right things you need for start up
Internet server
Internet security
when you have all this restart you computer and press f11(the keys above the key board)
but before you do have you tried restore

Answer 6

backup any files you want to save then put the os disc in. restart your computer and boot from disc when the prompt comes up.

Answer 7

back up all the files and drivers u needed
then format ur pc

Answer 8

You might find this walkthrough useful : http://mypchelp.blogspot.com/2006/10/windows-reinstallation.html

Answer 9

if you want to make it go faster try looking at the following page

http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/