Well got it reformatted yesterday, no problems so far. Next thing to install is the printer and scanner (drivers must be installed before plugging them in) and my wheel.

After that I'll make a DriveImage file (if it works with WinXP SP2), if it doesn't I'm kinda screwed because I don't have another backup program that works with that computer (Ghost didn't work because of how I've setup the harddrives). Any suggestions?

For the first time in nearly 2 years my computer is finally faster than the one I'm sitting with now (over 5 years old) when starting it (took like 8 minutes to fully start that computer before I reformatted).

Going to continue with the installing now.

Well atleast you got it working agian. How long did it take you? 2 hours? or more?

XP format + XP Install about 1 hour
Install Drivers 1,5 hours
Install external stuff 1 hour
Antivirus, firewall, Windows Update, DriveImage  1 hour

That's all that has been completed as of now.
Just need to install every other program I use...
That'll be...
Office
Adobe Acrobat
Photoshop
3DS Max
Editpad
Buring programs
BT
Video codecs/players
Adaware, spybot s&d
Java

+ some other programs and some games.

That'll take a while...

Quote (AzzA @ July 18 2005, 10:34 pm)

I just keep my computer clean and happy, and I have no problems, unless Windows decides to crap out on me for no apparent reason, like it has in the past. We just had to reinstall Windows on a friends computer because their kid screwed it up royally. The thing had at least 5 viruses, and more spyware/adware than I could count. They're Windows installation had gone to heck in a handbasket, after a few months at most. (We fix their computer on a regular basis.) To be honest, that kid shouldn't be allowed within 10 feet of that computer.

Give him a user without admin privileges, that way he can't install anything.

Quote (UniKorn @ July 19 2005, 8:39 am)

Give him a user without admin privileges, that way he can't install anything.

The problem with that is, many programs require that you be an administrator to run them.

Quote (Peaceable Frood @ July 19 2005, 2:26 pm)

The problem with that is, many programs require that you be an administrator to run them.

Not really. Only to install them it is needed.

I connected a PC to a network, and I couldn't run Autocad through a network login until I created an account for it on that PC with "power user" rights...  Don't know if that applies.  lol

The most beneficial thing I do when format + install is to partition 2 drives allowing about 1/3 for XP.  This keeps the OS pretty much by itself.

This way I can defrag the OS fast and, in fact, reinstall XP without having to reload a zillion other things.  I also put my swap file on the other drive.

Actually, with XP you can do this after the install.