Clean Reinstall Windows?

[BruisedQuasar]

Since I bought my factory refurbished T23, I have had strange problems with the IBM install-recovery sector of the hard drive. 1st the drive is 20GB so I do not like the IBM sector taking up room. 2nd I had to download and install the drivers because the IBM driver folders were empty leaving me with a 1990 quality display & no sound.

I have a full version of Win 2000 Pro SP3, newer than the factory installed SP2. Strange things would happen like shut down when I click hibernate. Shut down when I select come out of standby and my Sandisk WI-FI PC card driver seemed to gum up the works for standby & Hibernate. Finally, the factory install was FAT32 instead of NTFS format.

When I installed from Windows CD, I got a report that there are two partitions and advice to be very cautious about deleting the IBM sector. I did not delete it and setup did not format over it.

I have Win 2000 SP3 running and it is better but some strange things still happen. I would like to delete the IBM partition, just do a full format (which did not happen), format the entire drive NTFS and install Win 2000 Pro from Windows CD. The IBM auto download and install for drivers and updates worked well for me, so I am thinking total NTFS format and install, then do IBM site auto check-install drivers.

Any reason why I should not eliminate the IBM sector (I forget the name IBM gives the entire drive). Utilities report the drive is NTFS now but I think it is dual partitioned. System Mech 6 Pro reports I have a few thousand duplicate files on a newly partitioned and Win installed drive!

Opinions please.

[tecneeq]

I think in your case it's safe to delete the IBM MBR. One easy way to clean the disk is this:

- Make sure your Windows setup CD is bootable
- Safe your files
- Download drivers for your network to a CD or floppy
- Download RIP (a bootable Linux CD) from http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robo ... 9.grub.iso
- Burn it on a CD and boot it
- Type this command: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
- Boot your Windows Setup and install, the disk is clean
- Get the network going and install the latest servicepacks and updates, then install the IBM stuff

RIP is a nice little tool i use a lot at work to save files, partitions, or do other kind of wonderfull things. The command dd writes zeros (if=/dev/zero) to your harddisk (of=/dev/hda) in blocks of 512 byte size.

In this case we only overwrite the first block on the disk wich contains the MBR and the partiton table. If those informations are gone the old files are still there, but windows ignores them because it can't tell where the partitions end or start. As a matter of fact it doesn't even try.

BTW, if you sell a harddisk or anything that contains a harddisk you should do this to make sure nobody can recover your precious banking sekrets:

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda

Do that 2 times and it is impossible for people with light skills to recover any usefull information from the disk. Do it 20 times and nobody, no matter how clever or ressourceful, can recover information.

[egibbs]

You might want to backup c:\ibmtools first - it has some moderately useful free programs like a DVD player, CD burning software, etc. Although if you've installed a retail W2K it might be gone already, and if you haven't misssed it, you probably don't need it.

As far as System Mech's duplicate file checker - I've never figured out what it is good for. Yes, there are thousands of duplicate files in a brand new install - but don't bother trying to clean them up unless you've got a few extra moinths of free time to play with.

Ed Gibbs

[BruisedQuasar]

You might want to backup c:\ibmtools first - it has some moderately useful free programs like a DVD player, CD burning software, etc.

System Mech's duplicate file checker - I've never figured out what it is good for. Yes, there are thousands of duplicate files in a brand new install - but don't bother trying to clean them up unless you've got a few extra moinths of free time to play with.

Thank you for the detailed response. I thought I was overlooking something when I puzzled over what Sys Mech's dupe file check was good for. If you must go over thousands of files one by one, what the hey! I also wondered if it was normal to have all these dupes on a new install. I am glad I installed the full Win 2000 over the IBM auto install! The system is working much smoother and snappier.

I find despite the MS hype to the contrary, it is still a good idea to fresh reinstall Windows 2000 or XP about every six months. The fresh registry alone is worth the format & reinstall. The improvement over Win 95 - 98 seems to be that I don't need to reinstall once a month.

Now, if Windows could be improved to be like Linux or Mac OS X so you do not need to reboot after program or Windows update installs.

[egibbs]

I find despite the MS hype to the contrary, it is still a good idea to fresh reinstall Windows 2000 or XP about every six months. The fresh registry alone is worth the format & reinstall. The improvement over Win 95 - 98 seems to be that I don't need to reinstall once a month.

This is just me, but I make it a point of pride that in over 20 years of using PCs now, I have never had to reinstall an OS to fix a problem or clean out the registry. I've come close a few times, but I've always managed to figure out what was actually wrong and correct it.

Of course that often takes longer (sometimes much longer) that a wipe and install would have, but I'm not paying for my time and I always learn something.

Besides - there is a certain satisfaction in ripping an offending piece of software (Symantec for instance) out of the registry by it's roots...

Ed Gibbs

[jdhurst]

I don't re-install much either. I keep the OS patched and maintained. I have Registry First Aid (brand new version out) and it rectified an Access Connections problem of my own making. I run it occasionally. I find (myself and clients) that ordinary common sense helps keep a PC running well. ... JD Hurst