Need help reformating my drive completely, first time

[Catsonar]

I need to reformat my hardrive because is has so much junk in it that it just getting slow and acting gay at times. I would like to completely wipe it clean and start from sratch by installing everything again. What should I do? is it really necessary to backup? Any help will be greatly appreciated. thx

 

[Tigerbiten]

No.
But if you backup things like any new drivers, etc that you have downloaded and need then getting backup and running is quicker.

I've just formated my drives.
Took me three goes to get it up and running without a virus.

First attempt.
Low level formated as changeing my scsi raid.
Installed Windozes.
Went to download a driver before patching Windozes and box started rebooting.

Second attempt.
Reformatted lowlevel and installed Windozes and Norton.
Went to patch Windozes and halfway through rebooted.
Norton came up with 4 viruses.

Third attempt.
Reformatted lowlevel and reinstalled Windozes and Norton.
Set internet security up to max.
Updated Norton.
Patched Windozes.
Got all my drivers.
Set internet security back to normal.
Now running smooth with no viruses.

Luck.......

 

[Catsonar]

Well the question now is, " How do I do this"?

 

[KevC]

It's actually very very simple.

Here's what I do. Go and download a bunch of the latest drivers for your computer and burn them onto CD.

The most important ones are Video, Audio, Ethernet. If you have nForce2, they have a nice package for you.

If you don't have SP1a, download the network version (big but worth it).

Download Spybot S&D, and Mozilla Firefox. AVG AntiVirus is free aswell.

Put all those on ONE cd.

Unplug your computer physically from the internet, whether it be phone line, ethernet etc etc.

Stick the WindowsXP CD in the drive... reboot. Hit Del and make sure your CD/DVD/ROM/RW is part of your boot chain. You want to boot up from the CD. Then bascially follow all the instructions on the screen. It's really simple.

When you're done, install your drivers. Then install SP1a. Then install the antivirus, spybot and firefox. Connect to the internet and the first thing you should do is do a CRITICAL update. You'd hafta use MSIE for this, but for almost everything else use Firefox

 

[Ice Czar]

just getting slow and acting gay at times.

what? was its sashaying around or picking out new decor?


the Ultimate Boot CD (freeware ISO)
has a utility called Autoclave which will Zero your HDD
what people now call a low level format
( A true low level format is now only done at the factory )

the manufacturers Diagnostic utility will probably have that ability as well (do only one pass with Autoclave, its designed to overwrite data a vaious number of times with different patterns to securely make data recovery impossible, well at least without alot of time and money)

 

[OldMX]

Autoclave got rid of weird unexplainable crashes i had last year under windows xp, several regular formats didnt fix the problem, but a complete wipe with Autoclave did, thanks Ice for recommending that program.

OldMX

 

[computermod14]

KevC or anyone that knows this; what kind of drivers are you talking about and where would you get them?Also, what is SP1a and where do you get it? Thx

 

[Ice Czar]

the drivers for your chipset and any on motherboard device will be on the CD that came with it (for instance LAN, sound ect) if you didnt build your own computer or dont have the CD you can download those from the manufacturer (you need to know the model and often the version of the mobo) you need to hunt down the same drivers for any cards, and again they are typically available for download from the manufacturers site

as far as XP Service Packs and hotfixes
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/default.asp

and my basic security cut and paste

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Security Checklist W2K

depending on what its role is that may include)

install Service Pack and hotfixes
close the vulnerable NetBIOS ports and cleanup bindings
Cofigure IPSec
Retrict access to LSA info

disable unecessary services

disable Guest account
setup my user account
rename Administrator account
create fake Administrator account (disabled)
enable network lockout of the true Administrator account
Limit the number of logon accounts
Remove the "Everyone" group and replace with "Authenticated Users" shares

disable HTML in e-mail
disable ActiveX
rename shscrap.dll to shscrapold;
install DSOstop
Unhide File extensions, protected files, all files and folders
disable default shares
Enable Encrypted File System
Encrypt the Temp Directory
setup to clear the paging file at shutdown
lockdown the registry
disabling or limiting WHS\VB\Java\Java Scripts (install HTAstop, Script Defender)
disable dumpfile creation
remove insecure subsystems (OS/2 and POSIX)
protect or remove: arp.exe \ at.exe \ cacls.exe \ cmd.exe \ Command.com \ cscript.exe \ debug.exe \ edit.com \ edlin.exe \ finger.exe \ ftp.exe \ pconfig.exe \ Issync.exe \ nbtstat.exe \ net.exe \ Net1.exe \ netstat.exe \ netsh.exe \ nslookup.exe \ ping.exe \ posix.exe \ qbasic.exe \ rcp.exe \ regedit.exe \ regedt32.exe \ regini.exe \ rexec.exe \ rsh.exe \ route.exe \ Runas.exe \ runonce.exe \ telnet.exe \ tftp.exe \ tracert.exe \ Tlntsvr.exe \ wscript.exe \ xcopy.exe
remove the .reg file association from the registry editor

Install and schedual trojan scanner, anti virus and intrusion detection
Install and configure Worm Guard and WHS Anti Polymorphisim patch

configure security policy control
enable auditing (logon, object, privilege, account management, policy, system)
set permissions on the security event log
set account lockout policy
assign user rights
set security options
configure firewall

Test
Run Baseline Security Analyzer (freeware)
> connect to the internet
Run NessusWX (freeware)

Do a remote Port Scan

all depending on how paranoid Im am that day
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

which is extreme overkill
eliminate IPsec, consider LSA at some future time
be careful with encrypting anything (save certificates)
you dont need to encrypt the Temp file
you probably dont need to protect or remove any of those file associations

 

[Catsonar]

Wow,


Can i say a thank you to all that posted to help me, man the responce was great, I appreciate all the help. Like always the people of [H] are the best, thx guys.

Catsonar