Community poll forum: 10/08/04 Reason the last time you reinstalled your OS from scratch?

I reinstall my OS (Win98) every year. An OS can become quite unstable if left to it's own devices. It also gives me a chance to apply the latest drivers and patches in a clean install. My last reinstall was actually caused by a HDD failure. Why, I hear you ask, do I persist with Win98? I am a computer engineer by trade (speciallising in Dell), and as such I reinstall all sorts of OS's on a regular basis. Besides the added stability of Linux, Win2K and XP I have not seen anything that makes me want to change. I keep a CDRW updated with all the latest drivers, and another with all the latest versions of the applications I use. I also have a step by step procedure for reinstalling the OS, drivers and apps which I follow each time I reinstall (and update as necessary). I have played with the idea of making an image of the freshly installed HDD on DVD-R. This way reinstallation becomes a breeze, but it doesn't account for applying the latest drivers / patches from a clean install.

I had an interesting problem that resulted from upgrading my PC. At the conclusion of the upgrade I reloaded a Ghost backup. My system blue screened. All was not lost as I have a second system. I began to research what had happened to me and found out something that I thought I would pass along.

I was so impressed that I did a short page on the procedure. That page is at the following URL:

http://209.48.113.164/myPage/sysrecover.htm

This might help some of the folks that took the recent class on building their own system.

Windows XP allows you to reload only the operating system. All of your settings and application code remain intact.

Rick Johnson

Hello all,

I am writing this post out of confusion and frustration. I am an IT professional and I am a windows man. I have often contemplated making the switch to Linux, and I have always heard good things about it. Unfortunately my experiences do not match what I have heard. I have tried to install multiple flavors of Linux on multiple machines using multiple versions of the media and not once have I been able to get Linux install successfully on any of the computers on which I have tried. (Well that's not true, one time I got red hat installed but then nothing worked.) I even went so far as to take my PC to a Linux users meeting to try to get Suse installed and they could not get it to work either.

Now I am a fairly savvy guy when it comes to computers, but I admit there is vastly more information about Linux that I don't know than what I do know. I've tried Red Hat, Suse, Debian, Fedora, and most recently Mandrake 10.1. I've tried it on PII's, PIII's, AMD Athlons, and Celerons - nothing. I've tried it on large disks, small disks, with half a gig of ram, with 128 MB of ram. Integrated video, NVIDIA video, with sound without sound, IDE, SCSI - nothing. Never never never never never have I been able to get a Linux version to install completely AND then work. The one Linux system I have managed to use with any success whatsoever has been KNOPIX, and I did not install it I ran it from a CD.

Am I cursed? Am I doing something wrong? Is there some strange magnetic field surrounding me that won't let Linux install on a machine that will be in the same room with me? As I stated before I have even had seasoned professionals try to do it for me with no success. Am I the only one this is happening to? I can't understand why I hear such good things bout Linux yet I can't seem to replicate what I am hearing. I can make Microsoft product do almost anything I want. Am I tainted? Has Microsoft injected me secretly with some sort of anti Linux serum? I am honestly baffled to the point where I am about ready to give up on Linux. Anyone have any advice to offer a man who has reached the end of his Linux rope?

I also agree, about bit rot, I use 98se,W2k,XP,dos6.22. W2k seems to me to be the most stabil out of all of them.I do a lot of downloading and checking out new app's after awhile pute gets boggy, slow, sleepy, there is no other choice but start over again, of coourse you can always do it the hard way, and spend hours and hours tracking down your problem, but I prefer a long but shorter way of fixing and that is reinstalling. Like on the commercials, "Its NEW!!, Its FRESH!! Untill I push the mouse on internet explorer.

not so often as I used to; mainly through tough learning about the workings of the registry. Now I always make sure I have 3 partitions, 1(Boot & windows)2. Documents, music etc 3.Norton Ghost image of partition 1.(In case my 'playing' with the registry messes everything up. I have always been discouraged from delving in the registry by everyone in shops, but then I never learned to eat my greens either........... good luck!

The last time I had to reinstall was because my computer got locked in a rapidly progressive downward spiral that ended in a screen with all the familiar graphics, but a language I've never seen. And no, it wasn't a commonly accepted language used by any peoples who populate the earth! Shortly after that screen I lost even the graphics, so navigating in that environment became impossible. I had to switch, and since I'm one of the crowd that still believes newer must be better, I upgraded from Win2K to XP Pro.

Shortly thereafter I decided my wife and I should each have our own computers, so I bought a new HP with one of the new AMD 64-bit processors. It came with XP Home on it and when I asked the folks at HP if it would be O.K. to upgrade to XP Pro, they told me this computer was specifically manufactured for XP Home, and they didn't advise changing the OS. Now I think I'm experiencing some of that "bit rot" others on this stream have mentioned. I've used Registry First Aid (which worked GREAT at first, but after a few months it started removing things I needed) and other "performance boosters", but they never seem to give me that "new computer smell". I want my old, fast, fresh performance back again. How do I go about it?

I have the "restore" disc that's supposed to put my computer back to how it came from the factory, and I have a clean copy of XP Pro. Any recommendations?

I had many problems such as system slow down, blue screens and annoying glitches. I was unable to determine the causes and not having anything important stored on the computer I wiped it clean and reinstalled the OS. Since putting service pack 2 in for XP I am getting annoying glitches again. I really haven't taken the time to determine if they are simple fixes or more MS screw ups.

For some unexplainable reason my computer freezes on startup on the 6th dash in the second start up screen. This has been happening about once a week for about a year. I usually can fix it by using Norton go-back or removing go- back and using the repair console FIX Boot command. However, about every 2 months this does not work and the only way to make the computer useable is to reinstall the OS.
To make this less painful, I only keep windows 2000 and Norton system works on the C drive. All other programs are on my large external drive.

If anyone else has experienced this I would certainly like to know how they solved this problem.

Rocky
PS
Chip is AMD 2K,
MB is an ECS K7S5A with
750 mg of ram

The last time I reinstalled my OS was that I had a 20 Gig Seagate( 5,400 rpm ).I had ME on it which was crashing almost everyday.It was noisy and I had spywares on it and I had 2 direct x 8.1 installed.
Remember to get rid of direct x you have to to reformat your drive unless there is another way to get read of it.
I bought a nice and slim Maxter 40gig 7,200 rpm.
I installed XP PRO and I was never as happy in my life.