Starting over with harddrive?

[Bekariso]

Lately we've been considering whether it would help to dump everything on our hardrive (backed up what we want to keep, first, of course!) and to start over. We bought this puter used, and the guy who owned it before had just deleted his stuff, but there were still various fragments and spare folders left around that we couldn't delete because we didn't know what belonged and what didn't.
Now after another year, I think we've got over 600 mg used up, and we don't know by what! Except for WordPerfect & Stuff 7 and Win95, which we now have both on disk (buddy we bought the computer from wouldn't part with his Win95 disk till he got Win98), everything else is either created by us or downloaded.

We have problems sometimes with things locking up and getting "system unstable" messages when we do normal things. And it takes a very long time to start up and shut down now (pentium 90, 32 mg RAM, custom-built IBM clone, btw). We learned Win95 as we went along on this, so files got scattered everywhere before we figured out how to take charge of Win Explorer (the computer knows where to put it all, right?). And it all feels very disorderly and messy and cramped.

So, my questions are: would dumping everything, reformating the hard-drive, and starting over actually *help?* Can we reinstall Win95 ourselves from a "to be sold with puter only-version" disk? How should we do this to make sure we do it right or not create more problems later?

What do you think? Any advice? (If this is a stoopid question, please don't laugh.)

No rush in replying, we probably wouldn't get around to doing anything about it till Dec anyway (going away for next week, but will be able to use another puter there).

Thanks!

Bekariso

[Deb]

Hi Bekariso,

Last night/this morning I had my entire windows directory deleted. I had many faulty lil shareware programs scattering their files around and it got to the point where a format/install was needed (you think that has anything to do with me installing all kinds of stuff I do not need in order to offer tech support on it? *g*)

If you are at your 'wits end' and beyond fixing... then I would say go for it.

If you are unsure how to do it.. it would be best to have someone by your side who has done it before to help you out when those unexpected glitches occur.

Whatever you do make sure you backup everything and make sure you have a boot disk.

Hope this helps a lil bit
Deb

[Doug]

Hi, my name is Doug. This is the first time I have ever sent a message in a chat situation. It's been pretty much banned at my home ever since someone tried to recruit my 12 year old to a ....something I'd rather not mention. I have been following your messages for the past week or so and have decided to jump in. The support at Futurequest has been great and I'm excited about uploading my web site here soon.
I understand what Bekariso is going thru with his computer. I have had simular problems in the past with win. 95. I was always getting error messages but since I switched to win 98 both of my computers have been much more cooperative.

[Deb]

Hi Doug!

Just wanted to drop a "Welcome to the forums" to you http://www.aota.net/ubb//wink.gif

Very glad you decided to join in....

Welcome..
Deb

[pqwabbit]

hey man http://www.aota.net/ubb//smile.gif hehehe um just use shaytar's puter :Þ~~~~~~
is everything causing GFP or just certain programs?

We had to reinstall the orinagl stuff once cuz someone messed up the sound drivers and like the only place they was was inteh original settngs disk so anyway we had to reformat the drive and reinstll the original software - paint inthe butt if ya ask me - it does take hours reconfiguring everything to tight where ya like it -
you only using 600 megs? sounds bout righ tto me but you proabbly do gut some crap you could get rid of. Your other option is uninstall and reinstall the programs that have been giving you grief unless it's liek everything.
good luck man
that computer never did liek ya all too much hehee

Lea

[Bekariso]

Thanks for replying, everyone! We're still considering. . .

Nice to meet you, Doug, and welcome! Sorry to hear that your family had a bad experience in a chat or forum before. We've tried several in the two years or so that we've been online, and we know that though there are a lot of really good groups out there, a few jerks will always work overtime to ruin it for everyone as much as they can. Oh, and by the way, I'm female. http://www.aota.net/ubb//wink.gif I know, neuter name, it's that way on purpose, partly because of the aforementioned jerks.

Well, Lea, big part of the reason Shaytar got their own puter is so we wouldn't be tripping over each other for puter time! But we have been using theirs quite a bit -- I don't think we'd consider dumping out ours if we didn't have that one in the appartment to fall back on. And as for the puter not liking us, that was back when we were trying to multi-task with about 6 windows open on only 8 mg RAM and that stoopid 28.8 old-standards modem that would only run at 14.4 in good weather and 9.8 when it rained. Personally, I don't blame the puter for having a stroke every day under those conditions! I think we upgraded to 32 mg and spiffy 33.6 modem while you were still at HH but we had left, if you hadn't heard about it.

Lately it's been locking up with basic things like Netscape, M$IE (which we use when Netscape crashes), and our text editor (Note Tab) -- that's what's so annoying. And like Deb said, bits of partly uninstalled freeware and shareware all over the place. :P

We'll think on it for another week or two, I guess. If anyone comes up with detailed fool-proof instructions I could print out . . . http://www.aota.net/ubb//wink.gif Nah, never mind, it's Micro$oft, nothing is fool-proof.

Take care everyone,

Bekariso

[meikel]

Hi,
I can add some thoughts on installing Win95 from scratch. Some things to look for before starting it:

1) Make 100% sure you have a DOS-boot-disk that enables you to access your CD (I assume you have Win95 on CD). I forgot this once and found myself in deep trouble.
You will need the following programs on it
1.1) FORMAT.COM
1.2) FDISK.COM
1.3) SYS.COM (better have this)


2) If you have an Update-Version of Win95, make sure you have the first Win 3.x disk ready (it's very nice searching it when you really need it)

3) I have good experiences with copying all Windows install-files to the harddisk first. It sometimes happens that Win95 does not recognize the CD-ROM drive and cannot continue installation. But you can try to install from CD first.

4) Make sure you have all driver disks ready before scratching your current installation.

5) Backup everything you might need before!!!

Greetings from Bonn, Germany
Meikel Weber

[Doug]

Sorry about the male inference in my original message, Bekariso.
I just read Meikel's message and am totally amazed. This is the thing that really blows my mind about the internet. To think that I could have an interactive conversation with someone on the other side of the world. It's amazing!
Meikel, my neice is fascinated with Germany. She has been studying the history and language for years and spent some months last year in your country as an exchange student. I'll have to tell her that I'm communicating with someone from Bonn. She will probably be impressed and wonder how I ever did it since I cannot speak any German.

[meikel]

Hi Doug,
Internet is cool, isn't it? I'm founding my business on it (selling shareware) and more than 75% of all customers of my software are from the US. Internet is a great way to send out a message and offer something. The main problem for me is the time-zone-difference between US and me (I am 6 hours ahaed of Florida). So I have to work a lot of days way into the night. But at least, I can sleep long in the morning http://www.aota.net/ubb//smile.gif
I've been to the US many times already. The last time was together with a friend driving with a rented car from NY to LA. But I have to come over again. I feel the urgent need to visit the Keys again http://www.aota.net/ubb//smile.gif
I have to leave now, as some people are waiting for me to play some chess. Bye for now.

Greetings from Bonn, Germany
Meikel Weber
http://www.meikel.com

[Doug]

Thanks for answering my message, Meikel. I'm going to take note of your web address as well as all the others that write here and inverstigate your web sites soon.

[Bekariso]

Thanks again for all your input. Sounds like it might be more trouble than it's worth. Especially since I bought this used, so I don't know if I have all the driver disks. I know I have a disk for the modem, and one for the printer (ancient b&w dot matrix that it is), but I don't think I have any others -- should I? I know these tinny lil shpeakers didn't come with one.

And I have a win95 boot disk, besides the win95 installation disk, but I don't know about a dos boot disk. I can make one of those, though, can't I, from the MSDos prompt window? Someone remind me . . . ?
(O, high school puter science, so long ago,
How I remember Dos 3.30 http://www.aota.net/ubb//wink.gif -- NOT!)

[pqwabbit]

oh yeh man if ya dont gut all your drivers man you be bummin - tehre's a lot of places you can downlaod drives from if you know whatr hardware you're dealong with but thre's no guarentee you can find the right one ya know -
Like you will need a driver for you sound card and stuff (where ya plug the speakers in) if it's harware it probably got drivers man - Maybe one of them uninstall programs or something sort of program that can help ya clean up your drive will help out man and /or one of them programs that will diagnsos and tell ya how to fix all the flubs up. Never hurts to scan and defrag on a regular basis either.

Lea

[Bekariso]

Hey Lea!

Yeah, I don't even know what kind of sound card I have or how to find out. :-P

We tried on of those disk cleaner uninstaller things once, it was called Clean Sweep. We asked it to remove all orphaned file fragments and bits, backing them up so that we could get at them if we didn't like what it did. Well, not only did it take out Netscape and WordPerfect&Stuff7 as orphaned file fragments, it took out *itself* as it was running it! We had to download it again and reinstall it to get our backups back because it did it in some obscure format that only that program could read. So no luck there, unless someone knows of something similar that actually includes common sense.

Thanks for the ideas, though. And we do scan and defrag often. In fact, I think it's been a few weeks since we last defraged, maybe we should try that again (duh . . .)

Bekariso

[pqwabbit]

heeh oh man that's way bad -
We just run PC Medic - which isnt quite that extreme - just tests the configurationa dn looks for missing files that si referenced inteh registereyand that kinda stuff -
Hmm well I guess Clean sweep lived up to its name hehehe - wish I had a program to recommend but aint tried any of the uninstallers
Lea