XP home upgrade advice needed

I have a PIII 450, 256MB ram, 7.85 GB HDD, Windows ME. It's an NEC Ready 9945. I ordered the XP home upgrade today and was wondering what the best way to proceed with the upgrade is. I want to get a larger hard drive soon. The floppy backups i have been using are now getting to the point that 1.44 MB is barely adequate to hold the backup files and soon a cdrw is in my plans. Since I read many times that XP may consider that you are using it on a different computer if you change too many components, at what point would the upgrade give me less problems? Should I change all components first or upgrade to XP and then change the components after the OS upgrade. Thanks, Jack

 

Did you run the checker from M$ that will scan your system and tell you (usually) about hardware issues that are likely?

If not, take a look Here. The thing is by no means foolproof but it will give you a good idea about most of your hardware.

 

Here's my personal recommendation for a successful upgrade:

Things to buy:

1. Get a DMA 100 - or 133 - controller card for your HDD's.
2. Get a new and larger HDD.
3. Get correct ribbon cables for the new controller and HDD (80 wires)
4. Get a CD-RW (if economically possible).
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   Then go about installing XP this way:
   • Install the controller card in the PC
   • Place your new HDD as the Master drive on the first channel on the new controller card using the correct ribbon cable.
   • Place your old HDD as the Master drive on the second channel on the controller card (again I would recommend you using a DMA 100 Ribbon cable, but it may not be necessary)
   • Place your new CD-RW as the master on the first channel of the in-built controller on your motherboard.
   • Place your old CD-ROM drive as the master on the second channel of the in-built controller.
   • Boot up the machine with your XP upgrade CD-ROM and, if necessary, have a floppy disk with the driver which came with your controller card ready.
   • Partition and format your new HDD to your liking.
   • Install XP to your new HDD (XP will ask you to insert a qualifiying product CD to verify that you are qualified to an upgrade).
   • Boot up to a freshly installed OS.
   • Install any necessary drivers and run WindowsUpdate till you're up to date.
   • Move all documents and preferences from your old HDD to the new one.
   • Format your old HDD to your liking.
   • Install third-party programs.
   • Tweak settings.
   • Activate Windows XP.
   • Lean back, and enjoy a job well done.
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     It seems like a long list, I know, but I believe that this is the ideal way of doing it.
     
     By installing XP to your new and empty HDD you gain both speed and stability rather than trying to upgrade all parts of a system which very likely is very different from the one you are upgrading from.

 

the above post looks great to me, but I just figured I would highlight the importance of doing a clean install. I haven't worked enough with XP installations yet, but from experience, ALWAYS if possible do a clean install.

 

clean install

I am contemplating the upgrade to XP and read in more than one location about doing a "clean install." Could you tell me basically what that involves.

 

This is what I have discovered I run a Pentium III 550 with a 80 gig main HD and a 20 gig Seondary drive. everthing is compatible with it according to the program. but would not load it. I finally broke down and talked to my main board manufacturer and found out according to him my board and a lot out there are not XP compatible, I was amazed as I have friends with old computers that have XP on them but one of the delevoper techs there is something in the chips that XP does not like on some boards no matter how new they are. He has brand new pentium III boards that are not xp compatible. Man what this world comming too.

 

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I am contemplating the upgrade to XP and read in more than one location about doing a "clean install." Could you tell me basically what that involves.
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A clean install consists of deleting everything off a partition (or hard drive) and simply install a fresh copy of XP. In most cases you would do a "upgrade" where all of your files are saved, and XP pretty much takes on your current OS and fit's itself in.

In my opinion doing an upgrade is liking taking the peanut butter out of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The people that I know that have done upgrades, have had problems. After they did clean installs, there were no problems (or very few at that)

Doing a clean install is just a good thing. I did one, and am so glad that my hard drive has very little compaq software left on it. It is so nice just to have XP, and not all that junk on those recovery Cd's.


EDIT

as for the post previous to this one, it doesn't suprise me one bit. Think about it logically. Microsoft has been making OS's for a long time. They have been keeping up with those drivers, and don't simply leave them behind. That is one reason why I believe my Compaq worked pretty well, because it's not too old, and it's not too new. My friend had a brand new dell, which was supposedly "XP Compatible" and he ended up having to swipe his hard drive. How was microsoft supposed to make drivers for thigns that were just coming out during XP's testing mode? my new mouse and scanner were the only 2 (major) problems I had with XP. And yes, they are the latest pieces of hardware I have purchased!

 

A clean install is pretty much what it sounds like.

It involves installing to a new or a formatted HDD, ie a disk with no data on it.

If you are concerned that you bought an upgrade version and not a full version - you can still perform a clean install (and MS themselves recommend this).
The only difference in the full version and the upgrade is that the upgrade version will, some time during the install, ask you to insert a "qualifying product" - which means you pop out the Win XP CD-ROM and pop in your Windows 9x/NT/2000 CD-ROM which is then verified by the installation program and then the XP installation continues.

There are many advantages to performing a clean install:

1. The new OS is not required to attempt to tweak drivers, settings or programs from an old version (in the case of the 9x series based on an entirely other codebase).
2. Your new OS will be much more stable than by dumping it on top of the old one.
3. You might have a lot of software that you are no longer using - formatting the HDD is an excellent opportunity to review what software you wish to keep on using.
4. You will be able to tweak your new OS to your liking from the beginning - rather than transferring less than optimal settings from the old.

Big Bill: I think that the problem may be ACPI (Advanced Configuration & Power Interface) compliancy... which means that you will probably be able to install XP on machines based on those boards - but some of the advanced power management functions will not be available and may need to be disabled in bios...

 

actually instaling the OS it asks:

What type of install

options
-upgrade (recommended)
-clean install

though everyone I ever talked to said I should do a clean install

 

Thank you both for your response. I have not yet purchased XP but was considering it and I think I would prefer to do a clean install even though I would have to start from square one with all my programs, etc. I'll need some additional help when the time comes. I'll be back to post my questions. Thanks again.

 

Polly said

A clean install is as is stated, either a brand new HDD that has to be Fdisked then formatted, or an old adequate HDD that is still good, but Fdisked and then formatted. Then boot to a floppy or CD drive, and install from there.

A clean install is as it is stated, totally clean without ANY THING else on the HHD.

If my current installation of XP holds up as I am turning more in favor of it daily.... Then I shall transfer all of my data to my secondary HHD, and fdisk the C then clean install on my as well.
Most of the programs I have, are backed up on CD, data as well, so it is not that much of a loss. Just need to re tweak everything when it boots back up again.

 

Actually if you are going to purchase Windows XP, try to go for the Pro version, superior by far to the home version.

But you also do NOT have to lose any files...
If you can swing it, by a cheap HDD, (10-20 gig), install it as
secondary drive D: Then transfer all of your files to it, those that you want to save, Then format disk C:\ then install Windows XP disk C:\
Reinstall your favorite needed programs, and retransfer all of your data files back to your C: drive.