Going to reformat...but I have a few questions.

[pat]

well, the summer semester is over, and i've decided to reformat my x40 but....

1) if i merge the 2 partitions, what will i lose?

2) do i really need what's on the 2nd partition?

3) what do i need to backup, except for my regular files?

thanks.

[akeskira]

1) If you don't care about the automatic recovery thingies etc, you don't loose anything. I don't use them personally. I don't really find any of the IBM utils very useful, so I only install them very selectively, e.g. the presentation manager.

2) Not really, no.

3) Whenever I need to reinstall Windows, I boot the machine into a command prompt, rename windows and program files directories, and then do a complete full install of windows. This saves all your files, creates new windows and program files directories leaving the old ones in place. I delete the old ones after a little while when it's clear I don't need anything from them. Backing up the HD before formatting is such a big hassle I never do it unless absolutely necessary. Using Partition Magic or e.g. System Rescue CD (free, http://www.sysresccd.org/), you can delete the IBM partition and resize the windows partition without deleting existing files.

HTH,

Antti

[pat]

ah, i forgot all about partition magic...that sure would relieve me the need of having to format.

ok, so i'll use partition magic to delete and resize. will i still have the security on my x40 when i turn it on (passwords and whatnot)? how about the access ibm button? it'll put it out of commission won't it?

[akeskira]

The startup passwords are a BIOS feature ie completely independent of the hard disk setup you have.
Access IBM will most likely be disabled during boot, but in Windows you can install IBM's utils which also use the button for this and that.

Antti

[ibmuser]

i'll be reformatting and reinstalling everything on my x31. think i might wait though for xp2 due sometime in august/fall. i understand there might well be some issues with 3rd party software and it might be best to do this all from the ground up if you can wait some.