Advice for reinstalling XP after 5+ years on original intall

I have a Sony Vaio desktop that is over 5 years old running the original installation of XP Home. Needless to say, it has lost a bit of oomph over the years. I have the recovery discs that I burned when the system was new. I think it had SP1 when I bought it, but I don't even remember now. It currently has SP3.

Is it even worth doing this after all these years or is going to be more headaches than it is worth? Should I buy a new HDD if I decide to do this? I think it is EIDE. Or should I try it on the old drive first?

How hard will it be to update everything again? I don't want to spend too much money on this old box, but I wouldn't mind using it to learn a few things. I'm old, but I am good at following directions, LOL. Sorry for so many questions, but your help and advice would be most appreciated. Thanks.

 

maybe the wrong place to post, go to desktopreview.com?


buying a new hard drive wont solve anything. reformatting is easy. before you do it, go to the sony website and download all the latest drivers, burn them to cd or put them on a USB key
then reinstall windows, install the new drivers, and run windows update!

easy right?

 

I really didn't think it would matter if it was a desktop or laptop to ask this question. People here have been very helpful so I decided to ask it here.
The only reason I was considering a new HDD was that my current one is over 5 years old. What is the life expectancy? I guess it would be easiest to just use the one I have.

How and at what step of the process would I reformat? Thanks for the reply.

 

i used to do reinstalls once a year.. until i found auslogics boostspeed. it's only $30 and really worth it. it'll defrag, regestry clean, scan for spyware, everything. and the best part is that it works really well

http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/boost-speed

 

I haven't tried the boostpeed, but I have used quite a few of the free tune up utilities. When I defrag, there are always about 400 excess fragments, and within a week, there will be 10,000+ fragments. I remember when it wasn't this way.......

Edit: According to one source on the Sony web site, it does have a SATA drive, on the specs pages, it calls it an Ultra ATA and shows an IDE cable.

 

SATA and IDE/ATA are different, pic shows the difference. If your still not sure then take the side of the case of and have a look at the wiring going to the hdd, with the pc turned off of course
I'd also suggest you find out what the make of the hdd is and download a diagnostic tool for it from the manufactures site, nice to know if its okay or not.



I've always reinstalled this way and never had a problem.


1. Install Windows
2. Any Service Pack from Windows
3. Motherboard / Chipset drivers
4. Direct X update
5. Graphics Card drivers
6. Other Hardware drivers inc. sound, modem, LAN (etc)
7. Critical Updates from Windows Update

8. Install all your other programs and update them / set them up as you go
8. Full Defrag

If you have Antivirus and/or firewall software it is worth installing them early on, perhaps before you go online to get MS Critical updates. Do a Antivirus update early on too, to make sure u are fully protected.

 

You shouldn't have any problems doing a reinstall. If you have SP1 on the install disc, than SP3 will contain most of the updates you need. You might want to scan the drive for bad sectors and then decide if it needs replacing.

 

I would first run a "chkdsk /f" (use the built-in windows functionality), then run a defrag. You'll be surprised how these simple 2 things can revive the oomph.

cheers ...

 

I defrag frequently, at least once a week. It performs faster for a few days, then performance falls off. I have tweaked it to the best of my know how. I don't know if I am going to do this or not. I am interested in having as much input as possible. I know it's time for a new machine, but I thought it would be good to learn on this one.

 

Give the chkdsk a shot.
Then back up your registry. After that pick up a freeware on Registry Defrag, run it.

cheers ...

 

I thought this thread got closed, or is it me?

 

and why would it be closed?

cheers ...

 

The mod/admin whoever closed it because it was desktop related, I thought it was a bit stupid tbh as its a windows question.

 

It was closed, but I asked nicely and it was re-opened. Since it was software, not hardware related, the Admin said it was ok. I thank them for being fair. I am tempted to try the re-intstall, I just wonder if I should by a new computer first, just in case. :laugh:

 

I am going to give this a try as soon as I have a few hours(days!) to spare. I am going to install a new hdd and keep my old one as is, just in case. I have a question about the jumper position and also the IDE cable has two connectors for the drive. From the factory, the drive is connected to the middle connector, not the one on the end of the cable. My research has suggested that in a single drive setup, it should be connected tothe end of the cable. I asked this question at desktop review, but haven't had any replies yet. I would be most appreciative for any help. I don't know where else to ask this as I know that desktop questions aren't allowed. Thanks.

 

I'm back up and running again. I installed a new hdd, I installed it on the same cable connector and set the jumper the way it was on the old drive and it seems to be working fine. I just wish I understood why it was set that way originally. The Windows reinstall went smoothly, although I wish I had an XP disk instead of the recovery disks so I could have a cleaner install.

It was actually funny seeing some of the things that were on the original install back in 2003, like AT&T dial up service, MSN dial up etc. It was like going back in time to see NIS 2003 and Adobe 5 and the like. I am still installing and updating things as I go along. I did a disk defrag after I installed all of the updates and drivers and uninstalled all the bloatware with Revo Uninstaller. There is still one fragmented file with 4 excess fragments. Is it possible to have 0 fragments, and if so can you keep it that way for any length of time? It's been so long since my system was operating this well that I have forgotten. The new hdd is so quit, the old one sounded like it was grinding rocks. Thanks for yopur help.

 

What service pack did you revert back to, SP1a, SP1, or, heaven forbid, the original RTM version?

 

It was SP1, but I downloaded SP3 and burned it to a cd before I installed the new hdd. It was really funny seeing the old version of the apps. It has been a pain to update and reinstall everything after all those years. I wish I would have done this a long time ago. Could you help me out on the defrag question I asked in my last post? Thanks.

 

What file is the one remaining with fragments? My guess is it's a system file of some sort that the defragmenter cannot work on. If that's the case, about the only way to get around that limit that I know of is to put the drive into an external case, then attach it to another computer running XP, which will result in it being treated as just another passive data store, and defragment it from that other computer.

 

It doesn't list the file, even though it says some files couldn't be defragmented and to see the list. Is it worth the bother to do it on another machine? Will it get more fragmented over time? Do you have 0 excess fragments on your computer? I would like to hear other people running XP and what their defrag results are.

 

In all honesty, it's just not worth the effort. Even if you were able to get every single file defragmented by putting it into an external enclosure and attaching it to another computer, it would almost instantly start generating a few file fragments here and there just under normal usage.

For example, I defragmented my c: drive several weeks ago, and in fact ran the defragmenter app several times until only the system files were still fragmented. I just ran a report on that drive, and here are the results:

Code:

Volume System (C:)
    Volume size                                = 30.00 GB
    Cluster size                               = 4 KB
    Used space                                 = 20.86 GB
    Free space                                 = 9.14 GB
    Percent free space                         = 30 %

Volume fragmentation
    Total fragmentation                        = 2 %
    File fragmentation                         = 4 %
    Free space fragmentation                   = 0 %

File fragmentation
    Total files                                = 85,083
    Average file size                          = 329 KB
    Total fragmented files                     = 6,212
    Total excess fragments                     = 15,124
    Average fragments per file                 = 1.17

Pagefile fragmentation
    Pagefile size                              = 1.13 GB
    Total fragments                            = 1

Folder fragmentation
    Total folders                              = 7,188
    Fragmented folders                         = 31
    Excess folder fragments                    = 189

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
    Total MFT size                             = 94 MB
    MFT record count                           = 92,747
    Percent MFT in use                         = 96 %
    Total MFT fragments                        = 3

As you can see, it's amassed quite a few fragmented files since then.

 

I'm not going to worry about it. The computer is over 5 years old. Reinstalling XP has breathed some life into it. It is much quicker now. It must have deteriorated slowly over the years until became a nightmare recently. It is a good learning experience for me. I have a problem with my second optical drive that I need to track down now. It is a DVD ROM and it won't spin the disk. I haven't used it for a long time so I don't know if this something new or not. I have been testing everything since the reinstall and found that it doesn't work.

It says insert a disk even though there is one in the drive. The tray opens and closes, but I doesn't sound like the disk spins. It is recognized in Device Manager and it says that it is working. The other drive works fine. Any ideas? Is there anyway to test the drive to see if it is shot? Or maybe it is a software or BIOS problem?

 

It's possible that the driver didn't install correctly, so you might try uninstalling the driver and then reinstalling it.

Also, I did a quickie google and after a little hunting through some of the hits, came across this: Nero CD-DVD Speed, which appears to be a utility for testing CD/DVD drives. I've not used it, so I can't say for sure if it's legit, but I would suggest downloading it, scanning it for viruses, and then giving it a test to see if it provides any data.

 

Thanks for the info. I'll check out the speed test. There are no drivers for the dvd ROM on the Sony site, just a firmware update which I downloaded and installed. It still doesn't work. The Hitachi site has no drivers as the drive is OEM. Perhaps it just uses the Windows drivers? There has to be power to it as it will open and close. It makes a ticking/sqeaking sound when I put in a disk but it doesn't sound like the disk is spinning. I honestly don't know when the last time I used it. I am just suspicious because I jut did the XP reinstall. I'd hate to buy another drive and find out that the problem is elswhere.

 

That doesn't sound too good; any chance you could get a look at the spindle and what drives it? It does sound like the spindle may be binding, which obviously no amount of software is going to fix.

 

I'll pull it out when I get a chance. It's not that I need it, it just irritates me that it doesn't work after all the hours I have spent on the reinstall and updating. I had to delete over a dozen apps with Revo, all the crap because of the recovery disk. I just want to keep this pc running for a while. I am looking into building an i7 based machine and fixing up old Betsy here is helping me learn a lot. I want the Windows disk for my next one. It would make the process neater and smoother. It is funny because I have a trial version of AT&T dial up, MSN 8, Messenger 5.0, Adobe 5.0 plus a few other programs that are no longer supported. It was badk to 2003 again.

I hope I can at least diagnose if it software or a bad drive. The hardware is easy, it's the software that causes insanity! Thank you for your help. I appreciate it. If you have any other suggestions or ideas, I'm all ears.

 

Shyster1, thanks for your help. The drive was bad. The spindle was free, but it wouldn't sping a disk. I borrowed a drive from a friend and it works fine. Now I am thinking of adding some RAM. I have 512mb now, will I see a difference with 1gb?

 

The difference will definitely be noticeable, particularly if you tend to have a lot of apps open at the same time, or a lot of processes going at the same time (like a whole bunch of browser windows).

 

RAM for my machine is pretty cheap. I currently have 2 256mb sticks with a capacity of 4. I can buy 2 more 256 mb sticks for about $20 or 2 512's for $30-40. I may give it a try. Things are working pretty good so far.(fingers crossed!)

 

The more RAM the merrier. Unfortunately, the VAIO I have is limited to a max of 768MB RAM (256MB soldered on, one slot for up to 512MB more, all of loveable PC-2700).

 

Same here, PC2700. It must be getting close to being extinct.

 

It is. PC-3200 DDR is, too (goes in my desktop turned server); a Gig of PC-3200 is generally about $90 around here.

 

ive got a couple boxes with registered ram. expensive as anything

 

I still have to reinstall Office 2007. I had previously installed it on this computer and another one. When I reinstall it on the computer with the new hdd, will that count as my last use? I have a 3 machine license and I would like to still have 1 license to use on a new computer in the future. Is there any way possible to do this?

 

Anyone? I was hoping for an answer here instead of starting a separate thread.

 

it should accept the licence more than 3 times as long as it's always a longer period of time (half a year) in between installations. or so. i don't know exactly how they do it.

 

Will it remove spy bugs that let software programs know how many times you've downloaded them?