Clean re-install of WIN XP on laptop


Today I am going to be re-installing the OS on my laptop (SONY Vaio PCG-GRV550). It’s been in place for many months, close to a year , in fact, nearly just that. I forgot, but searching my archives I recalled that I last reinstalled July 18, 2003. That dratted Coke Spill Incident which pushed my lovely computer over the edge to being a laptop that needed the keyboard replaced, and have at least 1 USB port that didn’t work anymore, if not other elements which I just don’t use so don’t know, like the FireWire port. So, it’s been a long time. Some people feel, even with XP, that Windows should be clean installed every year or twice a year. That’s all windows systems. I tend to agree. Don’t try to fix it if it ain’t broke, but then also, if it’s even a tad sluggish, re-do it, you’ll be happier. We’ll see about that with my laptop, considering all.

In any case, I’ve done so much stuff to it and it’s just not working right. I know it needs some things fixed, but besides that, the thing will, most likely, run better once I re-install, clean install that is, the whole OS and such.

As it is, once it boots up and windows xp logs me in, it takes nearly 10 minutes most times for startup stuff to open and start, and if you want to do anything with a program before that all stops, forget it. This is mainly a problem because the laptop turns itself off suddenly whenever it feels like it. It’s one of those things that needs to be fixed, a daughterboard replacement, or something like that. So, this is an issue if it decides to shut off several times a day and I’m using the machine.

I am not using it most of the time. Full time I’m using the desktop the last couple of months. I get my email on desktop, but not filtered. I keep my email coming in the laptop, saved on the server for one day, and on the desktop I just have it saved on the server forever. This way, I get the mail correctly on both machines. It just goes a bit bad if my laptop isn’t turned on and email downloaded for several days. Since I don’t filter the desktop version of my mail, those very generic messages from my ISP slip by unnoticed until I can’t send myself something, or don’t get any mail when I think I should. That only has gone to the extreme once or twice, usually it has only been at a high water mark, the level of emails on the server being nearly full, but not. That’s alot to download at once. 🙂

So I’m burning my .pst to a CDRW as I type this, and hope to get the drive wiped and reinstalled cleanly and efficiently. Then re-install of all my stuff again. In an organized manner, I am hoping to do that. I won’t just throw stuff back on the drive, I want to rename and rearrange as would be more fitting. I have a goodly organized computer, just that I have many areas organized that could be fitted together instead of having it all spread out. I sometimes forget that I have such and such a folder setup for this or that kind of download, and recreate something similar someplace else, and then I have two or more folders with like stuff, spread out, instead of all of it in the one main folder. Just one little example.

Last week I had to reinstall Frank’s work laptop OS. Something corrupted and it wasn’t going to work to fix it. HP, which is what that laptop is, provides a separate OS CD from the applications and drivers. Sony, which is my laptop, my model at the least, there are three System Recovery CD’s which it takes forever to install, seemingly, and then two CD with applications on them. Oh, for at least a real Win XP install, but no, it’s a SONY PRE-NO-PRACTICAL-CHOICES-DONE-DEAL-CD. Ah, I am so familiar with installing Win XP. I’ve installed it on the desktop, which I’m typing on now, multiple times. It’s gone bad so many times, so frustrating. Well, that was when hubby was working on it. Since I last installed, he has had the HP laptop for work and play. Hmmm, no reinstall here, but I had to reinstall the HP laptop already. Hmmm.

Frank, any comments? 🙂


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