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The great reinstall: Worth it or not?
I've got a bit of a stumper on my hands. Tomorrow, UPS willing, a brand new hard drive (and a couple other choice upgrades) will be arriving on my doorstep. The new drive is a 250GB SATA number--not a monster, but much bigger and much faster than the ancient 80-gigger I've relied on the for far too long, so the new drive is taking the throne as my system drive ASAP. Here's the stumper: Should I be lazy and just transfer the contents of my C: partition over to the new drive, or should I put a daisy-fresh Windows XP install on it and go through the dance of installing all my apps and tweaking all my settings again? With the former I'm up and running again in a matter of hours right where I left off, which is both good (everything is exactly where I left it, including all my settings and shortcuts) and bad (everything is exactly where I left it, including my bloated registry and debris all over my system folders). With the latter I blow the weekend on installing and configuring stuff and doing the inevitable troubleshooting, and the next two months tweaking it until it feels comfortable again. So which is the lesser of two evils?Or is there a third option I'm not considering? Oh, I could take the easy way out and install Ubuntu or Vista RC2, but I'd still lose days and weeks on tweaking--even more, since both are less familiar to me than good old XP. Sorry, but I'm sticking with XP until now (though be assured I'll be rocking the VMware a lot more with my newfound hard drive space). At any rate, I want to hear about DLS readers' best kung-fu hard drive swapping and/or Windows reinstalling techniques. Pipe up in the comments below!
Comments
38
Subscribe to commentsScottNov 2nd 2006 6:56PM
This is so simple-- leave your old XP on the 80GB, put a fresh copy on the 250GB and set up your system to dual-boot from boot manager. That way you can slowly migrate over. I've run my system this way for years. Whenever you're done with the old, trashy OS, wipe it and don't look back.
Bill MintonNov 2nd 2006 9:25PM
Go to my freeware site http://www.missingbytes.net and grab a copy of DriveImage XML and make an image of your machine as-is. Put the new drive in, install a clean copy of XP, along w/the latest drivers and all your apps. Then using DriveImage XP, browse your backup and get things like emails, contacts, favorites, etc.
Be sure to set it up w/2 partitions, one for Windows (30G or so) and one for "data". From there, visit this journal entry - http://journals.fotki.com/airjrdn/Tech-Ramblings/entry/swsqgkdsqdb/ to get instructions on how to have DriveImage XML make a full backup image each morning at 2am and keep 3 copies at all times. All requiring no ongoin intervention from you.
MoshNov 3rd 2006 3:25PM
Fresh install for sure. I've recently bought a Core Duo machine with plenty of RAM just so I could move apps to VMs and leave the main host to just run XP, host the VMs and web browsing. I don't run any demanding applications, just Office and development tools. You could try using VMware's Converter to convert your current setup into a VM first.
Get the OS and the page file on their first. Let's face it, I bet you already know that you will use XP more and Ubuntu is headed for a VM :-) As for OSX, it's more hassle than it's worth on a non Mac machine.
roadGeekNov 3rd 2006 12:19AM
Dude you need AutoIt for installation of applications and a slipstreamed Install of XP using nlite to get a system thats ready to go out of the box and requires minimal user intervention. It requires work to get it right but once you do its easy to get windows reinstalled along with your apps and tweaked settings
TammyNov 3rd 2006 5:06AM
Clean install is the only way to go. I've got 2 computers & found out the hard way. The first system was fine til I tried to install SP1 & 2 ... SP1 installed great, but SP2 made the whole system freeze (Apparenetly, it didn't like Norton Systemworks 2006). On the new system, I put on XP, SP1 & 2 before I put on any other software. Then I put on all of the latest versions of all the free stuff (Flash, Java, Shockwave, QuickTime, etc) and the most recent drivers for my hardware. It runs like a dream ... Though, there is the occasional MSIE 6 crash caused by Flash 9 (but that's not very often) ...
The bloated registry & orphaned/widowed files are harder to clean that a carpet after a weeklong kegger party at a Frat house in the local zoo ... LOL ...
phmolNov 3rd 2006 6:32AM
Well, if you enjoy tweeking and customizing your Windows/applications a fresh install is the way to go. Personally, I rather spend the time on other things... ;-)
I just did a cleanout session on my 3y old XP using the "XP's no reformat, non-destructive, total rebuild" mentioned in comment 14 (www.thesol.com):
http://www.informationweek.com/LP/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189400897&pgno=1&queryText=.
and that improved things tremendously in the speed department.
I am actually considering right now to take the Acronis Image route to migrate my data to the (2nd) new HD I just bought.
BryanNov 3rd 2006 8:11AM
I did this a few weeks ago. I opted to do a fresh install, and also triple boot XP/Vista/Ubuntu (the first two took all day). Does Gnome/KDE/XFCE sessions count as a quintuple boot? Its the best of all worlds. I say fresh install. Software is your hobby, so have fun with it.
Russell ParkerNov 3rd 2006 9:09AM
I would do a drive copy but then I keep my registry lean and mean through regular cleaning - I take the view of little and often versus a weekend of trying to setup everything again (not that my wife would give me a weekend free to do this....). Can I also recommend CasperXP as a wonderful program for cloning and incremental drive copies. No rebooting or rescue cd creation is necessary - it will clone the entire drive during normal operation. Throughly recommended.
blahNov 3rd 2006 10:46AM
OSRI Definitely. Really.
DrewskyNov 8th 2006 12:31PM
I agree CLEAN INSTALL is the best. And like a few others said, either keep the old install in a VM or leave it on the old drive and dual boot for access to apps you haven't had time to reinstall.
And (as others have said) image your new drive after install and after any major install session (keeping only the most important 1 or 2 images).
glynne jonesNov 3rd 2006 5:03PM
My solution >> Install your new drive as D: for data only.
Keep C: to bare minimum >> progs only (+ pagefile/Photoshop chache/Google Earth cache etc...) Total ~15 GB >> that way scan times for Defrag/AV/AdAware/Spybot are so much quicker...
Is your new HDD really "much faster" than old? And does it matter...the only thing you should be accessing from C: is first load of progs...
I use my 250GB in USB enclosure.. available to all my machines; and since this drive, keyboard & mouse are connected through monitor USB ports... takes only one USB cable swap to change machines...
BTW: You would still have lots of room on C: to dual boot Vista if you really want to play...
Jordan RunningNov 3rd 2006 5:06PM
Glynne: Unfortunately, "the only thing you should be accessing from C: is first load of progs" isn't true--as you said yourself, C: is where the pagefile lives, and any increase in paging speed is worth it to me.
I do plan on keeping Windows and system files on a small separate partition, but it's definitely going to be on the new drive.
MichelNov 3rd 2006 11:03PM
The 3rd option you are looking for is to convert your existing PC to a Virtual machine.
VMWare now has a beta for software that will convert your existing PC into a VM. You then run the resulting VM using the free VMWare Player software.
That way you get the best of all worlds. A fresh PC image on the new hard drive, your existing PC image (preferably copied to the new SATA drive) and you can then use the OLD HD for backup or media storage.
You can slowly migrate between drives if you want. Or better yet keep your "production" environment in the VM so that it is easy to backup and keep the base Windows XP os clean for long term performance.
ExcelsiorNov 4th 2006 11:13AM
Fresh Install, but name the profile the same name as your old one and move the profile over as well. This way most of your things are still there. Just remember to make an additional login to do this.
prepostraNov 5th 2006 2:27AM
Question 1: Do you know where all the disks and passwords are?
If the answer is yes. Do a fresh install, and use the File And Settings transfer thing built in to Windows.
The fressh install will run for at least a couple of weeks before the bloat starts to set in again and you will at least feel like it was all worth it.
If the answer is No. True Image it across.
When finished install Ubunt onto the 80G and just have fun with it.
Travis CharltonNov 5th 2006 8:32AM
You could use the new VMWare Converter to make a VMWare image of your current PC, then load it after a fresh install to copy files and migrate settings.
SpenserNov 6th 2006 1:54PM
I do the same thing as Scott (#19)
I am currently dual-booting two copies of xp, I do this every two months to keep my computer running at its prime.
reinstall windows and just slowly copy over, if you install on a new harddrive then you still have all of your data but a clean install!
Scott SchrantzDec 9th 2006 8:01PM
I'd say wait. Just add the new drive as a D: drive for the moment, then when Vista comes out use it to do a fresh install of Vista. No point in going through the reinstall dance twice in two months.