Off-Topic, XP Reinstall

[Ronald Maggio]

Cyber Source <peter at thecybersource.com> wrote:
OR......I haven't heard WHERE your backing up your data too but assuming 
you HAVE DONE THAT ALREADY you could pop in a Fedora (or any Linux 
distro that has a rescue portion), once at a prompt you could (without 
the quotes)"dd bs=1k if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda" NOTE: THAT IS ASSUMING 
YOUR DOING THIS ON AN IDE DRIVE ON THE FIRST CONTROLLER AND SET AS 
MASTER OR SINGLE. That will COMPLETELY erase the drive, MBR and all. 
This is just one example as to why pc's that are important should not be 
left accessible from a security standpoint, no passwords, except BIOS 
but they can be overridden too, will stop this.
Then.. put in your XP cd and start the system with that and let it do 
what it will EXCEPT for (and this is my whole point) partitioning the 
entire drive. If you have a large enough drive, I would leave enough 
room for a REAL OS (Linux). Then install Fedora or (starting to really 
look good, Gentoo) or Mandrake or whatever floats your boat and take the 
time and use this group (if we get as much response to Linux questions 
as this Window question did) to learn a really great OS like Linux, if 
you haven't already that is!
I wanted to pass that dd trick along as it saves alot of time and crap 
people usually spend with DOS disks or whatever. Good luck.

<------------------------------------snip----------------------------->

Really? Wow!

Ronald Maggio wrote:

> Hi, Ken
> My best advice to you is to back up any files you need to keep, make 
> notes on the kind of hardware you have so you know what drivers you 
> need to install, If XP does not find them. Then fdisk the drive and 
> remove all partitions, make one large partition and _*low-level*_ the 
> whole drive with your hdd software that came with the drive in 
> question to write it back to zero's. Turn it off let it cool down, 
> then use your hdd software again to repartition the drive as you 
> please, and reinstall from scrach. Take your time and you'll get a 
> clean install.
> 
> I'd bet the drive was not clean before you tried to do an install and 
> it wrote a second install in the first as if you where doing a dual 
> boot of windows. ie: installing win 2000 pro, and dual booting win 
> 2000 server on the same partition. Sometimes windows does strange 
> things. The only way to clean this up is to wipe the drive as I stated 
> prior.
> 
> Good luck, let me know how you come out!
> 
> Ron Maggio:)
>
> */Kenneth Lawson /* wrote:
>
> Hello;
>
> I know this is a linux user group but I have a windows
> question/problems, and really don't know anyone who knows more them me
> about windows to ask. (I live in Allegheny Country, in the country)
>
> The question is this, I reinstalled xp last week I seem to have
> everything up and going ok but I also seem to have two copies of XP on
> my hd.when I boot I get a menu asking which one I want to use. I'm
> using the first one. I tried the second one and it wanted to
> regeisitor
> that copy of xp. So I backed out and restarted with the first copy. Do
> I need to reinstall everything again or what? Also I apparently didn't
> get the audio drivers or codecs installed because I don't have any
> sound on the machine at all, other then beeps. Also my Works 2000
> crashes the whole system, which never happened before.
>
>
> If any of you have run into ! something like before and are interested
> in giving me a hand I would appreciate it.
>
>
> Thanks for your imput,
>
> Ken Lawson
>
> =====
> Ken & Nancy Lawson
> You may now see Our Pictures at http://www.civilwarimpressions.com
> and
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Express yourself with Y! Messenger! Free. Download now 
> . 





		
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
vote.yahoo.com - Register online to vote today!
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nflug.org/pipermail/nflug/attachments/20041020/bbb10db2/attachment-0001.html