I seem to recall hearing somewhere that if you change operating systems it basically wipes out your harddrive. I'm about to install WinXP (have ME now) but don't want to lose all my programs, school work, porn, mp3s, etc. What is the best way to store all this shit before i make the switch? Or will it not get erased?

-Steve

depends... if you are upgrading, you *may* be ok.

Easiest way for the home user?

Buy another hard disk. They are pretty cheap now days.

Heck yeah - add a second slave hard drive and move your files there, and you are set :)

Originally posted by Travis Waldher
depends... if you are upgrading, you *may* be ok.

Easiest way for the home user?

Buy another hard disk. They are pretty cheap now days.

i don't really know my way around computers at all and i only need to store the stuff for 5 minutes so i can transfer it. i have a CDR drive and i've tried to start backing stuff up but it takes FOREVER. I'm not prepared to sit here and wait for 30 some cds to burn.

-Steve

EDIT: spending $0 would be nice. i thought maybe i could buy a zip drive or somethin then return it the next day.

A zip drive wouldn't be worth the effort either. Those disks are expensive, and don't hold nearly as much as a cd. Get a second hard drive. If you don't want to install one--which is easy as fuck these days--then get a usb external hard drive.

you'd still be going through the same thing with a zip as your doing with cdr's...your kinda screwed unless you get something like a removable hard drive and maybe return that...the only other way is to buy another hard drive and slave it


damn beat me to it :flipoff2:

you could always get a dvd-r drive and burn it 4.7 gigs at a time but thats gonna be way more expensive

will DVD-R's play on normal dvd players? that could be worth the money...

-Steve

I upgraded from 2K to XP yesterday and the only thing that didn't work was my CD writing program. I also had to update my sound card drivers. and DVD drive drivers.


bye the way, anyone know where I can find a free CD writing program?

Originally posted by TexasBlakeWFO
bye the way, anyone know where I can find a free CD writing program?


Kazaa?????

Originally posted by animator



Kazaa?????

well i guess is stated that wrong. I need a name of a good one, so I know what to download.

Yeah get Nero off kazaa...

nero blows. if you just want to burn mp3's and mpeg's, get realone player from http://forms.real.com/netzip/getrde601.html?h=207.188.7.150&f=windows/RealOnePlayerV2GOLD.exe&p=RealOne+Player&oem=dl&tagtype=ie&type=dl it's pretty cool

They have a portable hardrive called a Fire-Drive out right now that plugs into your USB. Its used for backup and can hold 20, 40 and 80 gigs.

Originally posted by offroadr35
will DVD-R's play on normal dvd players? that could be worth the money...

-Steve

I actually meant that one as a joke dvd-r drives would cost alot more than an external hard drive...but yeah they do play in most dvd players.

Yeah get Nero off kazaa...
I'd make for damn sure you got a good virus program if your going to d/l any exe file off kazaa alot of viruses going around

might checkout this site and ask some of these people they are pretty cool about helping out with good programs and alot of them use kazaa and might be willing to share

techimo.com (http://www.techimo.com/forum/index.html)

going way off the original topic sorry


Originally posted by TexasBlakeWFO
I upgraded from 2K to XP
bye the way, anyone know where I can find a free CD writing program?

doesn't xp have a cd writing built in if not win media9 should have one i know mine has adaptec...who manufactured your drive might be a compatability problem with xp :confused:

well i finally got done installing the damn thing. It is definitely noticably faster. I'm gonna have to play around with it so it's not as bright and doesn't move around as much. Anyway if anyone is considering doing this it does not appear as if i lost any of my files, so don't worry about that.

-Steve

the other thing is that most of your apps if you just copy them and do a fresh OS install will most likely not work. Winblows apps put tons of files in the windows directories. You'll most likely have to reinstall them.

Files (mp3's pron etc) will be fine to just copy them.

Originally posted by TexasBlakeWFO
I upgraded from 2K to XP yesterday and the only thing that didn't work was my CD writing program. I also had to update my sound card drivers. and DVD drive drivers.


bye the way, anyone know where I can find a free CD writing program?

Umm, EAC has some limited capability that I haven't used yet. I still use my Adaptec, but it's worth a try. Definitely the BEST mp3 encoder I've used, way better than MMJ which I own a license for.

EAC is postware btw.



MP3 guide. (http://www.cd-rw.org/articles/archive/mydeneaclame.cfm)