Planetarion Forums

SyPh0n · 26 Jan 2004, 13:21

On Windows XP Pro, if I were to stick all my 'needed' files into the recycle bin, such as my ton of MP3s, save games etc and then format using the XP installer (from boot), would this keep all my files?

I'm sure I saw this happen - someone deleted a few bits of junk then formatted anyway by this method, and upon first load onto desktop the bin had the junk in.

Would save an hour of burning CDs...

Cheers.

flapjack · 26 Jan 2004, 13:48

for as far as i know, formatting cleans the disk entirely, that includes your recycle bin, which is only a marker on files that they're going to be deleted, making it easier to recover important files that you accidently deleted

wu_trax · 26 Jan 2004, 14:08

that recycle isnt anything more than a normal folder (i think), so it wont make any difference if you delete the files or not, they will be gone if you format.
i would make a few different partitions (thats hard disk drives, C, D, etc.) and then use one of them for backups while formating the others.

SyPh0n · 26 Jan 2004, 15:12

Well I've since read that this is only possible with a partition or spare HDD already installed.

Oh well, out come the CD-Rs

wu_trax · 26 Jan 2004, 17:27

yes, but when you reinstall windows, you should make a few partitions instead of one only.

SyPh0n · 26 Jan 2004, 18:16

I think a 10GB partition is in order.

meglamaniac · 27 Jan 2004, 02:14

I would seriously suggest investing in a second harddrive.
Drives are STUPIDLY cheap at the moment (a GOOD 40gb drive = £38.50, see here) and the obvious advantage over partitions is that they are physically seperate in case of drive failure (your OS drive is more likely to die than one you only use for documents as it gets so much more of a hammering).

Think about it seriously, that's just over £1 per GB when you include delivery - storage has never been cheaper than now.

SyPh0n · 27 Jan 2004, 10:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by meglamaniac

I would seriously suggest investing in a second harddrive.
Drives are STUPIDLY cheap at the moment (a GOOD 40gb drive = £38.50, see here) and the obvious advantage over partitions is that they are physically seperate in case of drive failure (your OS drive is more likely to die than one you only use for documents as it gets so much more of a hammering).

Think about it seriously, that's just over £1 per GB when you include delivery - storage has never been cheaper than now.

I know yeah, on my wish list of upgrades alongside a new board and gfx card, a nice shiny Raptor was on it. I had looked at getting myself another one of the HDDs I've already got (80GB WD Caviar 8MB cache jobby) as this ones been sound but...

Alas... See: Poor Student who can't even afford a 40GB one.
See: Poor Student who has a £500 holiday to pay for.

(EDIT: 23 CDs after my previous post (not this one) I'm backed-up and ready to format. I do stand a chance of badgering the missus about about a DVD writer though...

)

Flavius · 27 Jan 2004, 17:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by SyPh0n

(EDIT: 23 CDs after my previous post (not this one) I'm backed-up and ready to format. I do stand a chance of badgering the missus about about a DVD writer though...

)

I wonder how much you paid for those 23 CD's

Luckeh!!!! · 27 Jan 2004, 17:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flavius

I wonder how much you paid for those 23 CD's

CD-R's are frightfully cheap these days, same goes for CDRWs, heck even DVD-R/RWs are cheap for what they are.

wu_trax · 27 Jan 2004, 18:17

no, this is not on topic at all, but i just ordered 100 dvd-r for 69.00 € (only 2x-speed but still, thats damn cheap)

SyPh0n · 28 Jan 2004, 10:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flavius

I wonder how much you paid for those 23 CD's

Less than £3 for 10, maybe 25p a disc. Possibly less

I can't remember what it cost for £100, under £25, so probably less than 25p a disc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luckeh!!!!

CD-R's are frightfully cheap these days, same goes for CDRWs, heck even DVD-R/RWs are cheap for what they are.

Yep - but I'm trying to figure out what would be more economical...

10x 4.7GB discs, or the equivalent in 700MB discs.
I bet DVD-+Rs win.

Luckeh!!!! · 28 Jan 2004, 11:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by SyPh0n

Less than £3 for 10, maybe 25p a disc. Possibly less

I can't remember what it cost for £100, under £25, so probably less than 25p a disc.

Yep - but I'm trying to figure out what would be more economical...

10x 4.7GB discs, or the equivalent in 700MB discs.
I bet DVD-+Rs win.

a 2nd hard disk would be best actually, it would cost more, but with about £70 for a 120gb hard disk, it would save you plenty of time when it comes to backing up.

SyPh0n · 28 Jan 2004, 17:33

A second hard drive wouldn't let me play downloads on a DVD player though etc...

It matters not, for I can afford neither!

MT · 30 Jan 2004, 15:32

£40 for a 40gb drive is a ****ing ripoff. I got a 160GB drive for less than double that. £1/GB is where we were 2 years ago...

meglamaniac · 30 Jan 2004, 17:35

the lower sized drives seem to be disproportiantely expensive still (maybe due to less demand?)

CjC · 30 Jan 2004, 17:39

The recycle bin on an NTFS partition is a folder called "Recycler" (I think it appears on each partition on the drive) which has subfolders for each user, named as the SID not the user name - This is to keep each recycle bin seperate for each user so other users (With the exception of administrators who should be able to access the recycler subfolders) cant access each others recycle bin files.

If you were to run the Windows XP installer disk, then go through the motions of installing a new version of XP on the same drive, same partition, same folder etc. the installer will ask you if you want to delete all the files in the old Windows folder. This allows you to reinstall windows without formatting the disk.

However, there are some substantial but not completely unworkable issues with doing this.
If you create a new user with the same name it will not have the same SID, so the recycle bin folder will be different.

Also, any user profiles in "Documents and Settings" will remain and a new user profile folder along the lines of "Username.Computername" will be created.

And your drive will still be fragmented. Plus any applications in "Program files" remain but you would need to reinstall them.

I've rebuilt my machine a couple of times this way because of the same problem, ie, not being able to copy the data to any burner or other drive.

I think the same would apply to a FAT32 partition but as I havent bothered with one for so long I cant remember.