Filed under: News
The great reinstall: Worth it or not?
I've got a bit of a stumper on my hands. Tomorrow, UPS willing, a brand new hard drive (and a couple other choice upgrades) will be arriving on my doorstep. The new drive is a 250GB SATA number--not a monster, but much bigger and much faster than the ancient 80-gigger I've relied on the for far too long, so the new drive is taking the throne as my system drive ASAP. Here's the stumper: Should I be lazy and just transfer the contents of my C: partition over to the new drive, or should I put a daisy-fresh Windows XP install on it and go through the dance of installing all my apps and tweaking all my settings again? With the former I'm up and running again in a matter of hours right where I left off, which is both good (everything is exactly where I left it, including all my settings and shortcuts) and bad (everything is exactly where I left it, including my bloated registry and debris all over my system folders). With the latter I blow the weekend on installing and configuring stuff and doing the inevitable troubleshooting, and the next two months tweaking it until it feels comfortable again. So which is the lesser of two evils?Or is there a third option I'm not considering? Oh, I could take the easy way out and install Ubuntu or Vista RC2, but I'd still lose days and weeks on tweaking--even more, since both are less familiar to me than good old XP. Sorry, but I'm sticking with XP until now (though be assured I'll be rocking the VMware a lot more with my newfound hard drive space). At any rate, I want to hear about DLS readers' best kung-fu hard drive swapping and/or Windows reinstalling techniques. Pipe up in the comments below!
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The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Don McEwan said 2:36PM on 11-02-2006
I know it will take more time and effort but I would do a fresh install. I tend to let me computer get junked up with all sorts of stuff that I really don't need or I only use once. By starting fresh I give myself an opportunity to decide what I want to have on my computer rather than just moving all my old stuff to the new setup. Of course if you only have 1 computer and/or need to be up and running quickly my advice would not be very helpful to you.
Good luck with whatever you decide.
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Peter said 2:40PM on 11-02-2006
Depends on how old and cruddy the current install is. If it's 6 months old and in good condition, by all means transfer it. If it's 4 years old with tons of stuff installed and uninstalled you should rebuild.
I have also done the middle ground which is to Ghost the current system. Do a fresh install on the new drive. Install Virtual PC or similar. Then create a virtual HD and do a restore of the image of the original system.
Then you get the benefit of a fresh install, but can quickly go back to the old system if you need to run an app or pull of some data.
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Xaos said 2:42PM on 11-02-2006
Being experienced in both clean installs and transfers over the past couple of years from a couple of my computers, I think you should go with a clean install and take the time to just reconfigure everything that you need to. Your computer will thank you for it later, trust me.
I had a bad experience where I opted for an overwrite of the XP OS without removing any settings or programs(not exactly the same paths you're considering but close enough)and Win XP graciously dumped a ton of corrupt files in a temp folder which reads out at about 500G on a 40G drive. To make it worse the files cannot be removed by any process I know of as Ive searched the net high and low and every possible solution has failed. The only way to get rid of is to do a clean install, which I should have done in the first place.
So anyways, go for a clean install, it would be worth it in my opinion.
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RP said 2:54PM on 11-02-2006
Since I usually buy a new CPU/Motherboard/Harddisk every 2 years, that gives me a boost in speed w/o a re-install, saving my weekend for fun and relaxation, vs. Windows hell. But if you enjoy the re-install process (eg: some people enjoy cleaning their garage), and/or you want the MAXIMUM speed, then sacrifice your weekend to your computer, and you'll feel good.
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Joseph Villalobos said 2:58PM on 11-02-2006
I wouldn't do it if it is not necessary.
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Donovan said 3:05PM on 11-02-2006
If you're not feeling the bloat of your current XP install, don't waste your time with reinstalling the OS. Also, one tool I HIGHLY recommend for moving your XP install to a new drive is Acronis True Image. Use the rescue CD and just choose the Clone Disk option. This makes life much easier and on a fast system you can have your new drive going in about 20 minutes.
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aboutthisboy said 3:10PM on 11-02-2006
I'd recommend doing a clean install. Sure, you might have to spend some time tweaking and installing other apps, but more often than not, I always start with a trimmed down system...I come across apps that don't really need to be installed anymore.
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bparks said 3:09PM on 11-02-2006
I recently upgraded my laptop harddrive from 40gb to 160gb. I liked the way my machine was running... I try to keep it humming nicely. So I bought a download version of Acronis True Image ($29.99 from newegg.com), wrote an image to a usb attached harddrive, replaced the 40 with the 160 and then booted from an Acronis rescue CDR and restored from the usb disc. Worked like a charm.
Yours would be much easier. Just install the new drive and image it over to the new drive.
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John said 3:18PM on 11-02-2006
Ah that is the problem with windows... too much bloat. OS X would take half a day at most if you had to reinstall everything and tweak your settings. If you just copied everything over... could be done in an hour or two depending on the size of the HD. But such is life as a windows guy eh.... too much bloat
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Bob said 3:16PM on 11-02-2006
I had good luck with Ghost 9 as well -- a quick way to clone the drive to a new one.
Just WATCH OUT if you boot up with both old and new drives installed -- if both have the same disk signature, Windows will reverse your drive letters, essentially moving C:\WINDOWS to D:\WINDOWS, and you may never be able to boot again unless you can hack this registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
Some tips here: http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm
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Andy C said 3:27PM on 11-02-2006
Turn your PC into a gaming rig and come over to the mac already ;-)
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mysticpain said 7:38PM on 11-02-2006
Fresh install! You will be happier. Plus.. yeah.. you have to tweak things... but I find that when I do a complete reinstall (which I do at least once a year) I find new ways of organizing my data. I also find new freeware programs that I have not used before. Of course..I am a geek like that. For some reason doing a fresh install and organizing all my data is ritualistic.
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Kat said 3:35PM on 11-02-2006
Psst, try out Install Pad from installpad.com - thanks Lifehacker!
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www.thesol.com said 3:40PM on 11-02-2006
You can always do the options of a XP's no reformat, non-destructive, total rebuild option detailed on the Information Week's Langa Letter.
http://www.informationweek.com/LP/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189400897&pgno=1&queryText=.
Hope this helps.
-Hank
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D said 3:40PM on 11-02-2006
Clean install no question. I do it every couple months and after a while you get used to it and it doesn't take as long, especially if you have good, organized backups. I mean how much personalization do you have that it'll take you months to get it back? I keep my system bare bones almost always anyway, but I know you must download and install every app you come across. Maybe keep a seperate machine for that and leave the regular system as bare as possible?
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Jax said 4:47PM on 11-03-2006
Clean Install is a must.
Basically, if you have a M$ OS for more then a year, your registry is not a pretty sight. Then there is the issue with viruses (virii) & trojan that never completely leave your system. Not to mention spyware /malware that keeps bugging you. Some App just dont need to be there or just cant be uninstalled other wise.
Plus if you spend a weekend with it, It'll thank you for another year or so.
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Nosh said 3:54PM on 11-02-2006
I have used Drive Image for the last few years - you start with a spanking new Windows install, install all your main apps, tweak them all you like and when you're satisfied, create an image. Now you're free to mess around with any new app you like - use the system with complete disregard for registry bloats, etc for a couple of months by the end of which you'll have made some setting tweaks and installed some new apps that you like - LOG EVERYTHING you want incorporated in your system. Then restore your image, incorporate the changes and backup the image again. All the registry crud you've built up has gone!
I've used this method for the past few years and the result is I have a _highly_ optimized system with all the creases smoothed out.
C is for system files & drivers only.
All the apps are installed to D:
The subsequent drives are used for the data generated by the software... documents, pictures, mp3s etc.
All apps that let you decide when to save the data they generate should be made to save to a drive beyond D:
Now you can whack off C and D drives at any point of time without worrying about losing anything worthwhile.
Go with a fresh install, there's no other way a self-respecting geek would do it. But this time BACKUP!
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Sara said 4:30PM on 11-02-2006
This is exactly what Laplink's PCmover is designed for - giving you back your weekend by freeing you from the drudgery of reinstalling all your apps.
The software will move over all your files, settings and applications from the old to the new machine.
Let me know if you'd like a "review" copy - I have connections :)
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Rob said 4:40PM on 11-02-2006
This is funny,.. I just did the exact same thing last night. I brought home a WD 250gig drive the other day and just got around to installing it last night. My plan was to keep my old HD and transfer the old contents to a new operating system on the 250.
Stupid me,.. I forgot that I had two HD's originally on my computer and the way it's designed, I thought I took out the old drive. (Never saw the 80gig system drive tucked in the front). When the XP install asked if I wanted to format the new drive I just clicked ok, and a second later I realized that the reported size of the drive just couldn't be right (330gig). Suffice it to say my old operating system is forever gone, with all of my presets and programs. Luckily the drive i pulled was the one with all of the storage (mp3's, etc).
Oh well,.. That's what I get for trying to do an install at midnight.
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adam said 6:22PM on 11-02-2006
This is an easy one. Ubuntu. Period. With Vista's restrictions, I wouldnt bother ever going Window's again. Besides, we can all see where the world of applications is going, off the desktop and onto the browser. Wordprocessing, spreadsheets, image manipulation, coding (but no compiling, afaik), can all be done online. To be honest, thats good enough for me.
The only thing I would say is still a positive for Window's environment is Photoshop. It simply works the best on a Window's PC.
Ubuntu (and family, Kubuntu, Xubuntu), is giving hope to the linux community, I firmly believe, Ubuntu is "The One", it took the blue pill. Sorry for the Matrix metaphor.
As for migrating or fresh install, I would definitely go fresh install, just as long as you back up your important files.(duh) Fresh install allows you to do partitions and reformats with ease. Sometimes fresh installs are faster. Ive done upgrades that take as long as 2 hours, probably from fragmenting, and I have had fresh installs take as little as 40 minutes for Windows, and 15 for Ubuntu. (without apget universe on everything)
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