Reinstalling Windows XP

[Dick]

I have a local PC with two (40GB & 80GB) hard drives. The XP on one of them appears to have slowed down noticeably & it's become quirky - probably the result of "tinkering" & cloning".

I want to clear out all of the old, including applications, etc. & install XP from a fresh start. The 80GB HDD will be the "C:" or primary operating system installation (now it's a backup). The 40GB will become the new "backup system". It will be cloned from the C:/80GB HDD using Ghost.

Question is: What would be the best approach (step by step please) to do this? Should I have both HDD's physically installed while XP is being installed on the 80GB drive? Should I first wipe, or just format both HDD's before doing the XP installation?

If it's a consideration, the 80GB HDD is driven by an ATA 133 PCI controller card with it's own drivers - not a "direct to motherboard" IDE connection. The 40GB is connected direct to motherboard.

Your advice will be very much appreciated.

Best regards, Dick

 

[dudette]

if you do an advanced install, I think you can choose which partition to load onto...

 

[jonocainuk]

if u have an alternative backup method which doesnt waste a shed-load of blank cds (like another pc on the network), then id personally shift everything onto the other pc and wipe all the drives and reset the partitions... I think that if everything was blank when it was first installed with XP, everything would be set up exactly how xp wants it to be, so it shouldnt cause too many problems (i imagine anyway lol).

if u installed XP last time on the 2 hdds while they were both blank, then i jus typed a load of nonsense which u dont need - if its already set up once, it wont need to be again.

 

[Dick]

Hi Dudette,

Thanks for the reply.

Installing from the HP Recovery disk set isn't quite the same as installing from Windows disks.

Also, the ATA HDD controller card/drivers have been troublesome. Even Maxtor hasn't been able to help me to get this lot working properly.

Best regards, Dick

 

[XPfan]

The Right Way To Install Windows XP