Fresh Install Or Just Clean-up?
Nov 6, 2009
I am working with a small school as IT help (along with other hats). We recently replaced PC's in a computer lab with new IMACs. I now have these older PC's that came preinstalled with Windows XP Home on them. I was going to keep them around to use as back-ups in the classrooms or additions for tutoring,etc. My first question is, since they were used for about 2-3 years in a lab scenario, should I do a fresh install of Windows Xp or just try to clean them up the best I can. (They all are DELL running 797mhz and 512mb RAM.)
If a fresh install is the best option, I have another question.
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Sep 26, 2008
I reinstalled my pc. FRESH clean install. running SP3. xp pro.then installed graphic and mother board drivers.before connecting to the internet or any LAN or installing anyother application. i installed NOD 32 and Spy bot, did both scans. then connected to the internet and did updates for nod and spybot. and scanned again. CPU usage after this was 1%.later during the day. my CPU suddenly was 50 % and idle was 99%that to me is wrong. and if its just a bug. its one that is killing my pc.this is a constant rate of 60% odd (running so far for 3 hours... no change)
i am not sure but could it be the SATA?
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Dec 30, 2004
I've been getting a lot of BSOD on my XP notebook (P4 3ghz, 784 ram). Sometimes it will say an ACPI.sys error, or a Bad Pool Caller, etc.I've done some looking and it seems it's a bad driver (well, other posts say that). How do you go about finding which driver it is? There's gotta be 100s of them.....
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Apr 18, 2005
HI, I just installed windows 2000 professional onto my computer. Everything works fine except that the resolution is really grainy. On some web sites I cannot even make out what the words are. I found out that when I go into my monitor settings in display properties I am unable to install the drivers for my monitor. Does anybody know a way in which I can get around this.
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Sep 25, 2007
I have just installed a fresh copy of windows XP sp2 on 2 machines. Both Dell Optiplex desktops. Usually it prompts that it has found new hardware for each device it hasn't found drivers for. Device manager lists them with a yellow exclamation icon.Problem I have now though is that the fresh install of XP does not show these prompt at all, although device manager lists them and if i go in there and update driver the device works.The problem I have is that basically i usually copy a driver heirarchy to the systemdrive and point the registry at them, which results in automatic installation on boot. This no longer works and I assume they are related as it doesn't look like it's automatically trying to install these devices.Is there a setting somewhere, seems very strange, what with it being a fresh install?
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Feb 14, 2005
I have two computers, one I use for gaming, the other for school. Both computers had 60gb Maxtor (school with lots of room, gaming with about 10 gb free). My school HD took a powder (the evil clicky noise of doom), but I was able to back up my files prior to that. Me being a quick thinker, I decide to upgrade my gamer puter to a 120gb (don't wanna go too nutso, as I am considering building a much superior computer), and put the good 60 gb in my old Athlon 700. Problem? I cannot get Windows XP Home to complete install on my gamer computer. (Athlon 700 installed just fine with 'good' 60gb).Gamer Computer: Athlon 1800+, 512MB DDR Ram 2100, KR7A Raid MOBO, GeForce3 Ti 200 (128MB DDR RAM), SB Audigy 2(AGP).
It is a RAID mobo, but i do not use the raid functionality, I did not have a problem before(I have my HD and my 2 roms on ide now). I go through the install steps, and I get to the very very end, where it states you are about to start Windows XP, and then it hangs, and thats it.I have tried to ensure there are no conflicts, I pulled out my sound card as well as my network card, and 're-seated' my video card and RAM. I have tried looking at using a winxp bootup floppy, booted into safe mode (the only error it detects is the missing RAID, no conflicts detected there). Heck, I even swapped out mouse and keyboard. I tried putting back the good 60gb back in the pc, and reformatting, but still get the same thing(sometimes the screen is black, sometimes the icky blue of xp, but that's it).I have no idea now. I did make sure that my bios was up to date before taking down the system originally, and it was, so no change was made there. Even swapped out the ribbon cables to ensure nothing was damaged on original removal.
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Jan 15, 2006
Wanted to do a fresh install. I want to wipe the HD clean before I start a clean install. Any programs out there for doing this?
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Aug 21, 2007
I want to do a fresh install of MS xp pro. The problem is I have a newer version of xp installed right now and the xp cd i have is a older version( legit cd). Because of that it won't let me re-install xp using the older cd. I do have sp2 just on a different cd. So how can I go about doing a fresh install? The reason i'm doing this is because my computer is running sluggish and I want to start over sort of speak. Any ideas what I need to do? I have the bios to boot from cd. I also get a error message that the NTLDER is missing. I've been on other forums and so far no help from them.
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Jun 26, 2009
I've been trying to reinstall a fresh, liscenced copy of XP (sp2), but when I get the windows disc to boot, my keyboard won't work. I've tried to keep in both the usb port and to use the adapter to stick it into the dedicated keyboard slot - no luck with either. Do I have a driver issue? Under admnistrative tools/computer management/keyboards/hid keyboard device/driver/driver details, I have two different driver entries: the highlighted one on top says WINDOWS/system32/DRIVERS/kbdclass.sys and the unhighlighted one below it says WINDOWS/system32/DRIVERS/kbdhid.sys. I seem to remember adding or updating my keyboard driver at some point, but I'm not entirely sure. Can I/should I restore the kbdhid.sys driver, and if so, how do I do that exactly? Do I have some other issue? A USB driver issue perhaps? I have a number of different usb drivers as well.
As a corollary, when booting with a bootable disc (the XP disc and with my BIOS set to boot from disc first), the program asks to hit any key to boot from disc. With my keyboard plugged in normally (to the usb port), I get no response at that stage. Using the adapter, plugged into the dedicated keyboard spot, I CAN get a response, but then get no response (from either usb or dedicated keyboard connector.) when the XP disc boots up to the blue option screen.My computer knowledge is adequate but not extensive. I did build my system, but it was my first build.
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Oct 11, 2010
I'm doing a fresh xp install on an older hp ze5700. I am able to get the machine to recognize the cd drive initially and go thru the install up until it has to reboot to set up windows. then it seems the laptop does not recoginze the cd drive and freezes on the 'setting up windows' part.
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Nov 15, 2007
I have an athlon 1.2 asus a7a266 motherboard and 80 gig HD with XP and want to do a fresh install so I can pass it on without easy access to any past personal data.It still has a floppy and all my old boot discs say the files such as fdisk and format are not compatable with this operating sys.I made a boot from the computer but it doesn't have formatting software included.One I get it formatted with CD support I'll be on my way.
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Sep 25, 2008
Machine is an HP pavillion, 1gb of ram, running XP. I would like to do a fresh reinstall to clean out some of the gunck stuck on this pc. What would be the best way to do this?
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Feb 17, 2009
I recently got some virus which kept on duplicating, so my AVG antivirus could not permanently delete. So I did a clean reinstall of Windows XP Pro 32 bit with a full reformat. It is still very buggy. Some of the bugs even resemble the errors I was having before the reinstall. There were things like "could not load cmd.exe", AVG antivirus marking almost every Window's .exe as a Heur virus, "could not load login because of data execution prevention", and programs like Windows Media Player 11 and Visual Studio not being able to be completely installed.
Should I be concerend that this is a hardware issue? The harddrive should be OK because a full format should have detected bad sectors. Maybe my RAM is damaged?
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Feb 3, 2008
I have just done a fresh install of Windows XP - all is fine.Question - I am just downloading 92 updates from the M/soft site!!! Is there anyway to get hold of these and burn them to a CD so next time.
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Feb 22, 2010
I'll buy a new motherboard with video card, cpu and memory but I will keep the old HDD. My old mobo is burnt so I can't boot the PC. I want to do a fresh install on C: but I have some data that I need. I have a few ideas but I don't know if they'll work.
1)Can I use Windows XP Live USB edition to boot with the new mobo, copy the data from C: to another partition and then do a clean Windows install(well, only the C: partition)?
2)What if I do a Windows Repair Install, copy the data from C: to another drive and then do a clean install?(I don't think this is a good option because the user settings and program files will be deleted and I want to keep them so I will know what apps will I have to install.
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Mar 9, 2005
Trying to do a completely fresh install of XP on a mates computer. I have booted from 2 seperate windows xp discs (both of which have worked fine previously). It gets a small way into the setup (just past RAID drivers etc) then asks "Please insert Windows XP Disk 2 or whatever (depending on which windows version) in Drive A: and press any key to continue." I have never had this happen before and am not sure how to get past it.
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Oct 5, 2007
I'm getting ready to reformat my XP machine, it's long over due. Since I'm stuck with my older hardware: Intel P4, AGP, I'm trying to pull every available once of performance out. I'm trying not to leave anything on the table, but I'm not spending any more $$$ right now.I have 2 physical HD's. a SATA II (3.0) 320 Gig. This drive is pulled directly into the MB. Right now, it has 2 logical partitions, but only about 80G total is in use for my OS + Apps. The other drive is a SATA (1.5) 400 Gig. This drive is plugged into the PCI card that came with it, as opposed to my MB because my MB won't recognize it. It also has 2 partitions but is used only for my data and for keeping revisions of the same file. (I back up to both an external HD and an internal backup service.)
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Jan 11, 2006
What do I have to do to do a fresh install?? Do I just format the hard drive and restart with the XP disk inserted?? Is it that simple or is there more to it?
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Mar 2, 2010
Late lastnight I was attacked by a nasty virus that wouldn't give control of my computer back, every attempt at a "System Restore" was met by the virus blocking my attempt. I was able to do a "System Restore" via "Safe Mode" but strange things began to happen even after the restore point, so I saved as many family pictures as possible. Bottomline, is there a safe way to scan my thumb drive for virus so that I can add my family pictures to my new fresh install?
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Nov 18, 2007
I have never had this problem before but I am trying to do a fresh install of windows xp home on a dell dimension 2400 desktop. I deleted the current partition and then continued with the install. The computer is only currently at the "Installing Windows" portion right now and I started it at 10am this morning. So at my time it has been 7 and 1/2 hours so far. Its not frozen either. Does anyone know why it might be taken so long to install?
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Mar 30, 2010
I have an IBM Thinkpad R51, which had Ubuntu before (and XP a long time ago.Now I reinstalled Windows XP (licensed, just in case you ask). But the wireless network adapter (internal) doesn't seem to be recognized. So I downloaded and installed the driver, but it doesn't do anything. I went to see if XP recognized the card but it doesn't, it is listed in "Other hardware" with a question mark.I do not have a wireless icon either in the notification area or the Network Connections.
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May 29, 2010
Internet Explorer icon in "START" does not show the "E" icon as expected. It shows the icon (blue box with tiny tiny red, blue and green icons inside) that sometimes indicates that XP is not sure how to open the program or which program to use.However, the program WILL open.
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Jan 23, 2007
OK, I just finished building my PC, but I can't figure out how to install XP (don't stop reading, it isn't that easy).I get XP Pro SP2 through the Microsoft Campus Agreement for free, since I'm a full time student, it's legit.Problem is, they can only provide it as a self extracting executable.I can't get it on a bootable cd.I want to do a clean install, without installing a previous version of windows and then installing XP pro on top.
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Feb 25, 2007
Basically the first time I tried installing windows (pro sp2 from my alienware) I used the floppy set and I got through to the installation screen just fine but it wouldnt read the disk in the drive. So I thought it may have been my disk. I tried 3 other disks ( 2 different burned disks and an authentic windows pro sp 2 disk) none of them worked. So now I figured that it may have been the driver for my dvd burner drive. So I tried using a boot disk with some generic drivers on it. First I tried loading a win98 boot disk which did not work. Then I tried an XP boot disk with some drivers and that didnt work. (what I mean when I say it didnt work is that when I tried installing off the three different disks in conjunction with the setup floppies) Then I tried using a 95 boot disk and still, nothing happens. Except now im having even bigger problems. I cant even boot floppies anymore. It seems like any or all the drivers I got from the boot disks completely ****ed up my system and im unable to do anything at all.
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Sep 8, 2006
I've had this Compaq since 2004. I've added a gig of RAM, a 250gb SATA HDD, and a 6600GT card.
Anyway, I want to do a clean install of XP, which I've never done. I've cleared a bunch of space on my 250gb HD and transfered all the files im going to keep from C: to the 250gb.
So my question is what will happen to my 250gb drive? Do I have to disconnect it? Will XP recognize it after the clean install? What about the extra RAM and 6600gt?
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Jan 16, 2005
I formatted the PC, reinstalled WIndows XP w/SP1. I've got Norton Personal Firewall and Norton ANtivirus installed, all up to date. I have Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware 6 installed, also all up to date. They catch nothing. Everything works peachy keen for a while, but then, I cannot open new instances of programs(such as IE or Firefox), taskmanager will not open on my screen(the the CPU meter appears in taskbar), and attempts to install programs while this is going on causes the isntall to hang, and things to get really messed. I even formatted agian, reiinstalled XP again, and it's STILL happening. I've downloaded all the security patches from Microsoft, except SP2 it hangs because of the problem stated above
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Apr 19, 2010
I have done a fresh installation of XP Pro SP3 but my firewall (Sygate) and the Wireless icon (in the toolbar) takes about 1 minute to load/show up. Prior to doing the fresh install, these used to come up/display immediately. I have the latest windows updates (i guess as of a few days back). Some details which might be useful:Actually before it share the details may i request a freeware which allows capture of text from dialog boxes. I have tried ctrl+C and vaguely remember someone sharing a tip sometime back about some freeware for this... Lesson learned. Should bookmark things or download them to a safe folder rather than temp Am using WZC though i have installed the latest driver from Intel's site [Intel (R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN (driver version used is 13.1.1.1] Do not have any junk in my start-up other than Sygate and anti-virus.
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Sep 24, 2008
My P5RD2-VM Ethernet port fried for some reason, so I purchased another Asus P5K Deluxe w/wifi. Also, it was taking at least 10 minutes to boot my old system, probably due to junk collected over time on my system. My question is Should I do a fresh XP install on a new hard drive (I don't need the space) or can I fresh install onto a new folder on my existing boot drive? Can I use MS File Settings & Transfer Wizard to push everything over to the new boot folder? Or am I creating more work than necessary? Is there a better way to change motherboards and do a fresh install with existing equipment?
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Apr 12, 2008
I have two pc's and they are nearly identical. Mine just had major issues and I want to retrieve the data on the system before I try either a fresh install on that HDD, or perhaps get a new HDD and swap that instead of my current one.I don't know if it's my HDD that failed, but after a major episode, and doing a repair, it keeps locking up on the checks and when bypassing that, it still locks up when I do get to log in. I tried to system restore, but apparently I don't have a restore point to do this, it just points to today. So, I've read that I can put the HDD from pc #1 (which is having the issues) into pc #2, which is working just fine) and transfer pics, docs, fav places, etc, that I want to save.I have no idea how this works. I've read about slaving and jumpers and such and this is all greek to me. I'm a reasonable beginner insofar as I know enough to really get myself in trouble, so I could REALLY use a detailed step by step description of what I should do. I'd also like to do some kind of diagnostic on the HDD from the pc that is exhibiting the problem to see if I do indeed need to get a new one.
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Jan 9, 2005
Would a moderator please pass this post to a discussion forum as it has been accidently placed in a forum where it was originally going to be a question, and i do not know how to change to the desination forum.And another newbie messes up the hdd, with an old pc having being upgraded to xp home sp1, i wanted to clean it to start from scratch.Downloaded killdisk, boot-iso-hd.iso, eraser etc - and not exactly knowing what i am doing, tried the boot.iso (did not work), used killdisk and both of my disk (master 20GB and slave 1.2GB 'cleaned'), then oops relised that i could not boot for the CD-RW drive with the xp home sp1 disk (not a recovery but a OEM), so i attempted to get somewhere with a win 98 boot disk and could run fdisk.exe, but could not get the format.exe to work, so i downloaded the 6 floppy disk version and got to install xp home sp1, when i inspected the disk - remember it is a 20GB disk, i noticed that when i defragged it had now become a 2GB disk.so i have had to run killdisk again and re-installed the xp home sp1 data (which now shows the full 20GB). for those who ask questions on the site is there a simpler way of doing the clean that does not throw up these little annoying errors and would it be better to have instructions for these in a seperate forum for doing the disk cleans, reinstalls, driver issues(.dll), standard downloads for recovery programs etc to help those who so kindly help deal with the more complex issues.
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Jul 19, 2008
I Recently offered to help my sister who dropped her monitor (CRT) off the table - while it was connected to the motherboard, causing damage to that.. So I just bought an upgrade pack (CPU, RAM, SATA HDD and the motherboard) Replaced and installed windows xp media centre edition SP3 on the new sata HDD, all works fine.All I want to do is grab the files (music and pictures) from the old IDE HDD which is sitting there and accessible save for the files under the user my sister had created. It displays a standard access is denied message.How can I open this up considering it is on the old installation of windows? (which will not boot due to hardware swap, it keeps looping).
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