Reformatting question for guru's please.....

[Tripper11]

Ok, I'm running windows xp home and will attempt my first reformat. All my reading so far suggests reformatting xp is fairly simple. I have all discs etc for all hardware.
My one question is in reference to getting back online and could be a somewhat dumb question, but nonetheless, here goes: once I complete it, including reinstalling xp, how do I get back online? I am on broadband cable(comcast). Is it automatic? Or is there some settings I need to look for in order to get back online?
Also, once I do get back online, will I have to download and install sp2? Or can I download sp1 and stay with that? I have yet to download sp2 and things have been just fine.
Thanks in advance!

[hobbit709]

1. Are you on a router

or directly connected to the broadband modem? If you're on a router, XP should just see it as a network connection, at least Win2K does which is what I use. You will have to reconfigure your email of course, hopefully you're using Mozilla or something other than Outlook. Then you will have to reload all your applications-Oh Joy! Do you have your hard drive partitioned?

[Berserker]

2. Drive partitioning

is the best thing I have ever done. About every 6 months I seem to have to reformat my C drive. I have a 40 Gig HD and have 3 partitions. The C drive I keep windoze and on and the other partitions I keep things on I don't want to lose when the inevitable happens.
Then all I have to do is reformat my C drive get back on line and I have everything I wanted to save still on my computer.

[Tripper11]

3. Thanks! An no partitioning....

My plan for now it to buy an 80 Gig portable hard rive to transfer all my music and other info onto and then reformat.
I have a 40 gig internal currently.
So, by partitioning(bear with my stupidity here) I can install XP on a section of the drive and then keep all my other files and programs on another so that when it comes time to reformat I only need to do the section with XP running on it without losing any data on the other partitioned sections?
Having said that, how big should I make the XP partition vs. data keeping sections?

[Tripper11]

4. Kicking to add a question.....

If I wanted to parition my drive now, move my music and other files over in order to format the drive is that possible? Is there a free paritioning utility that is easy to operate that will help with thei issue?
I really need to wipe it clean and start fresh in order to make this machine run up to its proper potential.

[canetoad]

6. Partitioning

The xp installation cd will handle the partitioning for you. Try these guides.

http://www.blackviper.com/Articles/OS/InstallXPHome/installxphome1.htm

http://www.5starsupport.com/tutorial/xpinstall.htm

[Tripper11]

7. Wow..great thank you canetoad....couple more questions if I may

Once I partition the drive, I can then move my music, pictures and other stuff I want to keep over there and then reformat the rest of the drive in order to install XP clean?
If that is correct, will there be a question asking me if I want to reformat the parition or what will happen there in order for me to keep that stuff?
As for my programs and other junk I mess around with, I have those all burned on discs. I just have about 10gig's worth of music that I really would rather keep, and burning them all to discs and then ripping them back seems like a bit of a pain in the ass, and re-downlaoding them....man...they're spur of the moment downloads, l;ike you hear a snippet of a tune that brings back a memory or something you dig on tv or whatever...know what I mean?

[canetoad]

8. ahh, I misunderstood you

I thought you were planning on moving all your stuff off the computer and doing a full reformat and partition.

I know there is a freeware or shareware program that allows you to partition the free space on a drive that has already got an OS and data. It might be Partition Magic. You could head over to alt.comp.freeware on Usenet and ask there, or try looking in the disk tools section on http://www.pricelesswarehome.org.

[canetoad]

9. I just checked

Partition Magic is $ware, but they have a downloadable free trial.

These two partition tools are freeware

http://www.ranish.com/part/
http://www.partition-saving.com/

[canetoad]

5. Modem drivers

When I reformat XP, after installing security etc, I load the driver on disk that came with modem (cable), then I connect and plug in the modem, turn it on and restart the computer.

XP finds the modem and the connection is up and running, you just need to tweak firewall settings etc.