The time has come for me to admit defeat and wipe my HDD and start again.

I need a new copy of XP Pro. Mine seems to fail the WGA test (for some unknown reason), and although I got round this for many moons, they made some changes so it now pops up every so often to call me a theiving bastard.
I think I have missed a few important updates, and this may or may not be the reason for my problems.

I suffer lock-ups, inability to open explorer windows (process explorer not responding), slow boot up, and having to click on endless 'end now' buttons during shut down.

I think its best to start from fresh with a legit copy of windows.

Questions...

Is it best to get an OEM copy? Any downside?
Anyone got a copy they no longer use that I might purchase?

I want to keep my WoW install up to date so if I decide to play again I dont have to spend 3 weeks downloading patches.
If I backup all of the downloaded patches can they just be run again when I install WoW again?

I posted about this a while back, and had lots of handy advice on improving the performace without this drastic step.
I tried them all but I think its time to refresh it.

I just need to make sure I back everything up!

If I lost my photos and music I would cry.

And yes - by 'photos and music' i mean porn.

OEM means they sell it to people who will resolve their own hardware conflicts / driver issues Microsoft will offer no assistance.But since there is very little useful info from them if an issue arises it should have no impact for you. As for WOW just save the entire folder somewhere and when you want to use it just drag a shortcut of the .exe onto your desktop.Seems to work for me since some ginger waster told me about it (thx Xui )

I just read that they are stopping distribution of XP on June 30th. Trust me to look into it the day after they stop selling it.

Fight the man! It's still available to buy, I can see it at Overclockers UK though Vista seems to be cheaper than it, though I'm not sure I could go from running a PC with XP to the same PC running Vista as I suspect the performance decrease would drive me insane.

Im still checking out my backup options at the moment.
Had a spare hard drive and intended to put the stuff i wanted to save on there. Borrowed an external caddy thing from some guy at work, but realised the old hard drive isnt anywhere near big enough.

Im going to have to spend some cash on this, and that makes me less inclined to go ahead!

I agree with Forensic - RL is effing expensive! Especially when im trying to convince a young lady that im a well-to-do man about town

/hide bank statement

Just realised I have 54.8 GB of pron. Is this normal? I feel a little ashamed.

Are you telling me you don't have all that kind of stuff in a seperate partition? OS should be the only thing on the C: partition as it's a ballache re-installing the OS otherwise Get hold of a copy of Partition Magic, make a 10-15GB partition, installing windows on to that, boot in to that and if you have the space create new organised partitions and copy your junk accross to them then nuke the partition with the old windows install in and boot from CD to repair the MBR if you need to. Obviously this relies on you having enough space to shuffle stuff around.

Watch porn with her?

Cheap and full of potential!

Seriously, just get 1 new HDD (500GB should do it) put all data you wanna keep on that, reformat and reinstall on the old disk.

Basic setup would be a 120GB harddisk for Windows and program files (with Conan and WoW installed your down well over 40GB allready) and 1 big disk for personal data (movies/music/games/software/etc.)

Nothing like a fresh start

yeah feel ashamed tbh, you should round it up to 55 GB

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/128465
Seems not a bad buy m8 caddy would cost you half that agree with trying to keep data on separate drive can move documents easily by changing its path to the D,E or whatever letter partition.

I have 2.5TB spread over 6drives ..

2 internal EIDE , 1 internal Sata , 2 external usb and 1 external firewire.

You can never have enough space imo.

As everyone says OS should go on its own partition and everything else on the remaining partitions.

I have a load of partitions, music, downloads, etc, but have the c:\ with windows and all the things I have installed - (programme files etc)
I guess I can re-install windows on c:\ and keep my d:\ and e:\ intact? I didnt think of that.
Would feel safer backing it up, and cleaner if i wiped it and started fresh, but I guess theres no real need...

Thanks for all the help folks

Whatcha talking about Willis

Bought new windows, and new caddy with 400gb drive.
Im backed up and ready to go!

Wish me luck! Im always nervous of doing this as im sure I will forget something and end up all annoyed.

Ah well - fortune favours the brave

Remember to export your internet favourites. Always forget that myself. And anyway, what are you doing buying a PC? Surely you have better things to be doing with your hands; I remember a certain photo....

Also your email account settings and email backup.pst

bolloxs i knew thier was something id missed

Not a new PC Sifty, just reloading Windows onto my old one as it was a bit messed up.

In the end I backed up my entire hard drive, with the c drive on one spare disc, and the other partitions on a different one.

Lo and behold, the disc I backed up the c directory on is now broken!
When I switch the power on in the caddy the drive actually beeps at me.

I think the word im looking for is 'fucksticks'.

Ah well, the machine is running well. Reboots in about 20 seconds!