rebooting windows xp?

[Burnie Burnerson]

Tomorrow I shall be buying a maxtor 250gig External HD. Like I was explaining before my PC was not set up with NTFS file compression activated. I am thinking of maybe 2 choices wondering about your opinions on the matter. Situation 1: I clean up my system of all files that aren't windows related, back up whatever I need to CD/DVD, and change my folders and files left to NTFS. Situation 2: I wipe my hd clean and reboot windows. The thing that I'm wondering is if I do step 2 I don't have a backup cd of windows it's the type that was already installed on my system. Is it really difficult to restart windows? I've never done it. Can anyone recommend that I take this on are there literature or web reference for a guy who wants to do it himself. Thanks to all my helpful homies at file forums!

[Grumpy]

Situation 2: I wipe my hd clean and reboot windows. The thing that I'm wondering is if I do step 2 I don't have a backup cd of windows it's the type that was already installed on my system.

If you go 'Situation 2' and wipe (format) your hd, then you wont be able to just 'reboot' windows!! Windows will need to be reinstalled and you wont be able to do that if you dont have a proper Windows CD!

[DABhand]

Is your machine a branded PC? i.e. Dell, HP etc


If not how did you get Windows in the first place?

[Burnie Burnerson]

Yeah bought it at futureshop and its an HP. I know the last time I had it in the shop to have the motherboard switched it cost me 90$ cdn. to reset windows. If I have a proprietary windows shoudn't I be avle to call microsoft and say I'm reseting it?

[DABhand]

Look in the start menu > all programs


There could be a backup disc option there to burn your OS etc to discs.


If not you should have your backup discs, they should be black since its HP (or Blue).


Your cd-key for windows should be on the side of your case anyways.

[Big Country]

Just as DABhand says. Either you can make a backup CD from a program that HP put on your computer or it would have come with the computer. It may not say windows on the disk. Maybe something like System Restore Disc. I just bought a Sony Vaio laptop and you have to make your own backup with the program provided. It tells you how much data there is to backup and how many discs you need. I think it does a backup of the entire drive as everytime I install something the backup size gets bigger.