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8204 is my 1st notebook - how-to question

post #1 of 15
2/14/06 at 2:45am
Thread Starter 
OK, don't beat me up too badly, please; I'm new to notebooks and the WinXP OS.
How do I do a clean reinstall of WinXP Pro when there is no MS disk to do so included with the 8204?
I am puzzled as it would seem to me using the system backup disk the 8204 system generates would also restore all the other programs installed by the system, which it did without asking for my approval.
Would it be better just to uninstall what I didn't want installed?
My current system is NT4. My C: drive is Fat32 and the remaining data drives/partitions are NTFS. When I purchased my NT4 system, it was easier to recover from Fat32 hard disk problems than from NTFS partitions. Is this still the case or should I change all the drives/partitions to NTFS?
Thank you,
nightstar
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post #2 of 15
2/14/06 at 5:15am
FWIW. I have never understand why people would go thru the trouble of a clean install for minimal performance gain, especially on a system with this kind of speed, 2 GB of memory and 120GB of HD space. Especially when it will only save you a couple 100MB of HD space and under 100MB of memory usage.
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post #3 of 15
2/14/06 at 7:13am
I'm still using the standard installation and would probably reinstall from the backup disc it burns after first boot.
There is definately some stuff in the task bar but so far it didn't do anything annoying. You might need most of it anyway sooner or later.

Has anybody made use of this harddisk protector tool yet?
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post #4 of 15
2/14/06 at 11:25am
I've been using a Toshiba Tablet PC for a couple of years now, and I'll tell you: my 8204 has far less crapware loaded than the Toshiba. Really, it's fairly clean, comparitively. So, I'll probably not sweat it like I did with the Toshiba, where all of the Toshiba stuff made a meaningful impact on performance.

Some of the utilities are quite nice, such as ePowerManagement (or whatever it's called; not in front of the notebook at the time). I haven't taken the time yet to break down what's necessary and what's not, but so far I can't see anything terribly intrusive.

I say, just sit back and enjoy the system. Even if you had a Windows XP CD (which you would need), you'd still have to hunt down all of the various drivers and necessary utilities. In my mind, that's not worth the effort.

Finally, I'd definitely convert to NTFS. It's a much more stable filesystem, and loses less space to slack (can't remember the terminology, it's been so long since I've even considered such things).
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post #5 of 15
2/14/06 at 11:31am
In this similar thread of thought -

I'm getting the 5672 from Compusa (2 gig (I'm aware that the RAM is 533 and not 667) 120 gb). It's a great deal but it's got XP Home on it. I need to be running pro. Should I just buy the upgrade (OEM off ebay of course). Even with the cost of the upgrade it's still $200 less than the model configured with XP Pro. And that's before the $200 in mail-in rebates.

So I would backup the restore DVD and if I even had a problem I could just restore XP Home and upgrade it again?
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post #6 of 15
2/14/06 at 11:42am
I don't see why that wouldn't work... I don't think the restore utility cares what's on the C: partition when it blows it away (and, it works if you convert to NTFS; I did that yesterday).
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post #7 of 15
2/14/06 at 2:21pm
what you can do is this...

Make the backup CD using the eRecovery tool..
Reformat the drive and resize the partitions...
Run the backup CD you made...it will install into the newly sized C: partition.
Then convert C to NTFS and format D:

Help on partition sizes... i personally like a smaller C:
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post #8 of 15
2/14/06 at 7:24pm

Restore CD

Does the restoration utility save an image onto the recovery CD, and if yes, does it just basically paste that image onto the new partition that you make?

And if no, what is it doing?

Sorry, I don't really understand what this is doing....

Thanks,
-Jon

Also... when you say reformat, and resize the partions.... are you doing this with Partition Manager, or how are you doing this...?
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post #9 of 15
2/14/06 at 7:27pm
i believe you can 1) back up the C drive with point in time backup
2) burn the default image off of the partition..

just dont delete that 4 gig partition
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post #10 of 15
2/14/06 at 7:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by euph_CF
i believe you can 1) back up the C drive with point in time backup
2) burn the default image off of the partition..

just dont delete that 4 gig partition

What is point in time backup? Sorry don't really do this too often

So first I would create the backup cd...
Then I would reformat with a program like partition manager?
-If I do this how do I run the program, because it would be running off what I am formating.... Please explain this and the partition process...
Then after that is done I would put the resore cd back in the computer, and let that load
Then after that I would convert the partitions in to NTFS....

Is that even close to right?

Thanks,
-Jon
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post #11 of 15
2/14/06 at 7:56pm
the point in thime thing pretty much lets you take a snapshot of the C drive at any point and dumps it to a DVD. Then if something bad happens you can revert back to this CD and restore it.
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post #12 of 15
2/14/06 at 8:02pm
i get that much of it, but if I want to resise the partitions, and change to NTFS... will i have to restore, or will I just be able to resize and convert?

Thanks,
-Jon
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post #13 of 15
2/14/06 at 8:30pm
converting is as easy as going into DOS and typing convert C: fs:ntfs

i believe thats the syntax...as per partition size, partition magic will take care of that... or another software...
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post #14 of 15
2/14/06 at 8:32pm
Alright thanks a lot, and sorry for all of my confusion....

-Jon
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post #15 of 15
2/15/06 at 2:04am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by JonM1827
Alright thanks a lot
-Jon
I also thank everyone for their responses.
nightstar
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