Slash Net

This is a how to guide and checklist on nuking your computer and reinstalling it. It's fairly quick and dirty, and assumes the user is (re)installing Windows XP SP2 on a desktop PC, so it may be rough around the edges for those of you installing on a laptop, have esoteric hardware, or aren't installing XP.

(Note: I now heavily recommend nLite or vLite for creating custom images, but this is not covered here.)

 

Pre-Format Considerations

It's recommended that before you do anything you perform a full virus and spyware scan from safe mode (tap F8 repeatedly as your computer starts up, in most cases, and select plain old safe mode).

The first and foremost concern about reinstalling your machine is most likely always going to be the integrity of your data - documents, media, and other items you want to survive. To this end, save at least two copies of it off the computer, whether to CD/DVD media, external USB/FireWire disks, other computers, or whatever. For CD/DVD/tape backups, make sure the option to verify your data is turned on. (NOTE: In the event the reinstall is due to viruses and such, do NOT backup to another machine or network device. Also, as a rule, don't backup programs themselves unless you know what you're doing)

Backing up data from your own folders is easy enough, but some programs do not save data in obvious places. For example, Windows 'Favorites' are stored under the 'Documents and Settings' folder, buried under your user name. Make a list of programs you want installed once you reinstall. Paging through your Start Menu should provide you with this list, but go through your Program Files directory to be sure.

Perform a hardware inventory, and make a CD (or use a flash drive, or whatever you like) with drivers for your hardware. The following checklist should get you started:

• Motherboard (chipset) drivers
• Video drivers
• Keyboard and mouse drivers
• Monitor drivers
• Removable media (eg, Zip) drivers
• Audio drivers
• Network Interface Card (NIC) drivers
• Printer drivers

Those drivers should not take up much room, so you might want to look into copying some downloadable programs that are available you commonly use (eg, Winamp, IM programs, Acrobat Reader, etc.). Go through your Program Files folder and decide what programs you'll want, and also use this time to figure out if you've saved data you want from them that you may want or need.

Create an Ultimate Boot CD and a Windows Ultimate Boot CD. Creating the Windows version is a little trickier but worth it. If booting to safe mode doesn't help your virus/spyware problem, using the WUBCD may. You'll also need an XP install CD (preferably with SP2 in it), as well as CDs with any programs you want to reinstall.

Know how to get into your systems BIOS controls - this is usually done by pressing a certain key after startup, like DELETE or F10. You also need to be able to know how to make the computer boot to an optical (CD/DVD) drive first (look for a Boot Order configuration).

Some hardware (such as removeable media drives) can cause install problems, including causing your install to use the wrong drive letter. To avoid this, shut down your machine and unplug any unnecessary drives, especially Zip drives. Generally, you can remove the data cable from them and leave the power cable connected. Also, you should make sure your network settings are written down somewhere (especially if you're using static IPs), and internet settings like dial-up number (if applicable), and so on. Usually your ISP's site will have information on finding this stuff.

Oh, and you may want to print this guide.

Formatting & Installing

Now comes the part when you blow away your disk. Once you're 100% positive you're ready to go, shut down. Boot to the UBCD you made, then go to hard disk utilities, then disk wiping. There should be quite a few tools there; unfortunately, it's hard to tell what will work on each system. All you need to do is zero wipe your drive (the fastest disk clean), so any of the tools that lets you do that is fine. Take a break, because the zero'ing will take some time.

Once that's done, eject the UBCD and reset, inserting your Windows XP CD (not the WUBCD). Press the space bar when it says "press a key to boot to the CD" (not the exact message, but something like it), and Windows will begin it's setup.

Since we've blown away everything, you'll be in DOS mode, and you'll have to setup partitions. The simplest way is to go with one big disk, formatted with NTFS. More complicated is setting up two or more partitions (which will create virtual drives) and separating your boot section from your programs and data, but we'll assume a single partition for this guide.

Follow the prompts from this point - nothing should be too complicated. Once in graphical mode (pretty mode), you'll do more prompt following - nothing too fancy. Windows setup should take around an hour, including formatting and such.

Once Windows is installed, shut down and reconnect any drives you disconnected earlier, if you disconnected any of them.

Driver, Program, & Data Recovery

From here, the last step is to reinstall the drivers and programs you made a list of in step one that you want, and recover your data. Drivers should come first - start with the motherboard drivers, then video, then network, then the rest. It'll take quite a few restarts; stick with it.

After drivers, reinstall your programs - you may want to start with ones from CD/DVD first, then ones you've downloaded. Following that, copy back your data files (documents, media, etc.) to where you want them (or to where they need to be). From here, all you've got left is tweaking and such - what colors you want, specific program options, and so on. Make sure you've read my article "Fear and Loathing on the Internet" to secure your PC. Congrats! You've just reinstalled your computer!