Re: Restarting in MS-DOS

From: Eptiger (anonymous_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 07/22/04 

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 21:48:35 -0700

Well I'm doing this for a friend of mine. I actually just
left his place so we'll be following your advice tomorrow.
The thing is he basically wants a clean slate for his hard
drive, and it's been reccomended to me by many people that
it's good to format your hard drive every 6 months. I don't
think he had so much stuff that it'll really be a hassle to
reinstall everything. He just had too much crap on the
computer though and he wants it totally clean.

Thanks for the help!

Eptiger

>-----Original Message-----
>"Eptiger" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message
>news:1c5e01c46f9f$a16c0270$a301280a@phx.gbl...
>
>> Hi I come from Win98SE and am not used to Windows XP. How
>> Do I restart in just MS-DOS mode? I'm using windows XP
>> professional and when i go to shutdown the only options
>> are to log off, shut down, or restart (but rebooting to
>> windows). When I hold ctrl at startup the only command
>> line prompt option is safe mode + command line prompt,
>> which is no good because I want to format and XP's
>> formatter isn't doing a good job.
>
>
>Just boot from the Windows XP CD (change the BIOS boot
order if
>necessary to accomplish this) and follow the prompts for a
clean
>installation. It will do the reformat for you.
>
>You can find detailed instructions here:
>http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
>
>However why do you want to do this? In my view, it's almost
>always a mistake. With a modicum of care, it should never be
>necessary to reinstall Windows (XP or any other version). I've
>run Windows 3.0, 3.1, WFWG 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98,
Windows
>2000, and Windows XP, each for the period of time before
the next
>version came out, and each on two machines here. I never
>reinstalled any of them, and I have never had anything
more than
>an occasional minor problem.
>
>It's my belief that this mistaken notion stems from the
technical
>support people at many of the larger OEMs. Their solution to
>almost any problem they don't quickly know the answer to is
>"reformat and reinstall." That's the perfect solution for
them.
>It gets you off the phone quickly, it almost always works,
and it
>doesn't require them to do any real troubleshooting (a
skill that
>most of them obviously don't possess in any great degree).
>
>But it leaves you with all the work and all the problems. You
>have to restore all your data backups, you have to
reinstall all
>your programs, you have to reinstall all the Windows and
>application updates,you have to locate and install all the
needed
>drivers for your system, you have to recustomize Windows
and all
>your apps to work the way you're comfortable with.
>
>Besides all those things being time-consuming and troublesome,
>you may have trouble with some of them: can you find all your
>application CDs? Can you find all the needed installation
codes?
>Do you have data backups to restore? Do you even remember
all the
>customizations and tweaks you may have installed to make
>everything work the way you like?
>
>Occasionally there are problems that are so difficult to solve
>that Windows should be reinstalled cleanly. But they are
few and
>far between; reinstallation should not be a substitute for
>troubleshooting; it should be a last resort, to be done only
>after all other attempts at troubleshooting by a qualified
person
>have failed.
>
>If you have problems, post them here, it's likely that someone
>can help you and a reinstallation won't be required.
>
>--
>Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
>Please reply to the newsgroup
>
>
>.
>

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