Reinstall of an XP laptop
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Another vote for Windows 7; XP''s not trustable and 10's too bloated.There is no honour to be had in not knowing a thing that can be known - Danny Baker0
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You might find more help on a specialist recording forum (like https://www.soundonsound.com/forum). There can be good reasons for sticking with XP when using a Firewire audio interface as these interfaces can be notoriously fussy about operating systems and drivers but it would be safest to disable the network interface once you've downloaded any necessary software.
I used one of those Satellite Pro A100's at my old job and they seemed pretty decent so should be usable with well written music software.0 -
Wow. Thanks for that. However, I'm not sure I want to go for Windows 7. The only disk I have is labelled:
Product Recovery. For distribution only with a new Toshiba PC. Microsoft Windows XP Professional.
Thanks again for the help. I'll let you know how I get on with creating some space and running CCleaner. Then maybe a defrag of the disk.
It actually doesn't stop you from re-installing XP. It just adds the option of installing Windows 7 at no extra cost.
I have the Toshiba XP with SP3 Home image if that's any help; Windows XP Home SP3 for Toshiba It will work with the current licence.Your disc will have SP2 at the most.0 -
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Thanks everyone - great responses.
I just have some more points of clarification:
esuhl - you said "since you have an XP Pro installation CD and product key...." Sorry, I'm not trying to be pedantic but if I have a Recovery Disk is that the same as an installation disk? Just checking. What exactly is on a Recovery disk - everything needed to restore the PC to when I first bought it? So I put it in the drive, run it and the hard drive is wiped and all the day one software is restored, leaving me to update drivers and add what additional programs I need (e.g. the Digital Audio Interface Driver)?
Also, enLite, in my case, would help me customise XP while reinstalling?
EverWhere - did you just give me a link to everything that I need to reinstall XP Home SP3? If so, thank you very much and if I do decide to reinstall, I'll need to find out how to actually use it. Then again, perhaps my Recovery Disk is really all I need.
Norman Castle - I've added RAM to the max permitted.
Again, many thanks everyone. I'm sort of 'just OK' at this PC lark but I've never attempted a full wipe and restore. Hence my thoughts about using CCleaner and a clear out of files first.0 -
Mine dual boots with Linux and I now rarely use XP. I had to use it today and it was slow. Part of the problem was everything wanting to update. Browser, av, firefox etc. This might be part of your problem.0
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esuhl - you said "since you have an XP Pro installation CD and product key...." Sorry, I'm not trying to be pedantic but if I have a Recovery Disk is that the same as an installation disk? Just checking. What exactly is on a Recovery disk - everything needed to restore the PC to when I first bought it? So I put it in the drive, run it and the hard drive is wiped and all the day one software is restored, leaving me to update drivers and add what additional programs I need (e.g. the Digital Audio Interface Driver)?
Not pedantic -- very good questions! Since Windows 95, I've only ever bought retail versions of Windows, so I'm not really familiar with the kind of CDs and recovery disks you get with a new PC. Maybe someone else here knows more and can clarify...?
If I put my (modified) XP CD in the drive, and look at it in Windows Explorer, I see the following directories. (Does your Rescue CD look similar?)
DOCS
I386
SUPPORT
VALUEADDAlso, enLite, in my case, would help me customise XP while reinstalling?
Before reinstalling. You copy the XP CD to a folder on your hard drive. nLite modifies these installation files, and at the end you can burn that folder to a new CD.
nLite will guide you though the process through several steps. You can slipstream (pre-install) the latest service pack and all hotfixes (Windows Updates) that have ever been released for XP. You can also install drivers, change lots of default settings, remove unnecessary components, and create a really cut-down minimalist installation of XP that is tweaked for performance.
The main purpose of it is to make re-installing XP a doddle. And (since XP is no longer supported), you can create a "final XP CD" now, before the service packs and updates are no longer available.
Even if you don't want to faff around pre-installing updates and drivers, you could just tweak some of the other settings.
Give it a go -- just see if it recognises your "rescue disk".
If you're worried about messing up your PC, it might be worth getting another hard drive and using free software like Macrium to take an image of your hard disk. That way you can restore everything exactly as it was before you broke stuff! :-D
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree
And if you want to test your newly created nLite XP CD, you could run it inside a virtual machine (a window on your current setup).
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
Whatever you do -- make sure you have the drivers you need before reinstalling Windows. It might be difficult to track down XP drivers these days, and without them your devices won't work. Have a look here:
http://www.toshiba.co.uk/support/consumerlaptops/What about the firewire bit? Will the necessary software load up too and maybe I'll just need to update drivers for everything, including the firewire?
You probably need the relevant drivers from Toshiba.
If the drivers are unavailable anywhere, there's a possibility that you might be able to copy them from your existing installation before you reinstall XP.0 -
Not pedantic -- very good questions! Since Windows 95, I've only ever bought retail versions of Windows, so I'm not really familiar with the kind of CDs and recovery disks you get with a new PC. Maybe someone else here knows more and can clarify...?
If I put my (modified) XP CD in the drive, and look at it in Windows Explorer, I see the following directories. (Does your Rescue CD look similar?)
DOCS
I386
SUPPORT
VALUEADD
Before reinstalling. You copy the XP CD to a folder on your hard drive. nLite modifies these installation files, and at the end you can burn that folder to a new CD.
nLite will guide you though the process through several steps. You can slipstream (pre-install) the latest service pack and all hotfixes (Windows Updates) that have ever been released for XP. You can also install drivers, change lots of default settings, remove unnecessary components, and create a really cut-down minimalist installation of XP that is tweaked for performance.
The main purpose of it is to make re-installing XP a doddle. And (since XP is no longer supported), you can create a "final XP CD" now, before the service packs and updates are no longer available.
Even if you don't want to faff around pre-installing updates and drivers, you could just tweak some of the other settings.
Give it a go -- just see if it recognises your "rescue disk".
If you're worried about messing up your PC, it might be worth getting another hard drive and using free software like Macrium to take an image of your hard disk. That way you can restore everything exactly as it was before you broke stuff! :-D
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree
And if you want to test your newly created nLite XP CD, you could run it inside a virtual machine (a window on your current setup).
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
Whatever you do -- make sure you have the drivers you need before reinstalling Windows. It might be difficult to track down XP drivers these days, and without them your devices won't work. Have a look here:
http://www.toshiba.co.uk/support/consumerlaptops/
You probably need the relevant drivers from Toshiba.
If the drivers are unavailable anywhere, there's a possibility that you might be able to copy them from your existing installation before you reinstall XP.
Thanks. Lots to think about there. I've had a look at my Recovery CD. It has two folders, i386 and Tools. Also, in the root directory it has a number of 'files', a CRC file, a tpa file,a DATA.INI, an HDbase.iso and a PEbase.iso, an ini and a sif file. These are all 'Files already on the disk'. It also says 'Files Ready to be written to the disk' desktop.ini (dated 16/01/2018).0 -
Thanks. Lots to think about there. I've had a look at my Recovery CD. It has two folders, i386 and Tools. Also, in the root directory it has a number of 'files', a CRC file, a tpa file,a DATA.INI, an HDbase.iso and a PEbase.iso, an ini and a sif file. These are all 'Files already on the disk'. It also says 'Files Ready to be written to the disk' desktop.ini (dated 16/01/2018).
Your recovery disc is just an OEM version of Windows XP with SP2 with branding and the components needed to shake hands with the string that is tattooed to the Motherboard(for auto-activation)
The one I have supplied is just a later version of the same thing, with SP3. I can organise a Pro with SP3 OEM image if you really need it, though even your disc with do the job.
Your manual is here0 -
EveryWhere wrote: »Your recovery disc is just an OEM version of Windows XP with SP2 with branding and the components needed to shake hands with the string that is tattooed to the Motherboard(for auto-activation)
The one I have supplied is just a later version of the same thing, with SP3. I can organise a Pro with SP3 OEM image if you really need it, though even your disc with do the job.
Your manual is here
Wonderful, thank you. I've just removed a lot of my files from the laptop and it has freed up half of the disk space. I've run CCleaner and it removed another few Gb. Not sure if there's anything else I need to do with CCleaner other than a straight analyse and run (using the default checks in the left hand window).
Next I'll remove unwanted programs (I'll use Revo Uninstaller), then remove unwanted programs from Startup and then do a Defrag.
Any other thoughts, other than a full reinstall?
BTW, now that I have a win 10 Laptop, maybe I'm wrong in thinking that the XP laptop is slow. Is there any way to get an objective view of how well a PC is running - a program maybe?
Thanks again.0
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