Fast Windows reload ?!?

[Dave_07]

Hey all,

Below quote by myth, was taked from the explorer.exe thread.
I didn't want to impact on 47th ronin's thread, so thought should ask in seperate thread.

I had that prob as well..... FDISK!!! Thats what I did... But I kinda got used to it.. I can reload windows in 7 mins!

My question is simply this, wow ! how do you manage to get a full fresh reload of windows in just 7 minutes ?

Cheers.

[0iD]

Prolly his combination of uberclocked CPU & raid0 Raptors.

[directhex]

or a ghost image.

[0iD]

Good point, if he's a good boy & takes regular images. Or he's got a clean install image backed up. Always handy.

[Dave_07]

How would you go about creating an image of a clean win install on a cd (702mb)
as i have a reasonable install of windows, but also lost of games/programs aswell, how would i create an image of just windows without all the other stuff, onto a cd ?

[0iD]

As far as I know an image can only be taken of the system 'as is'. Failing that, if you have a spare HD, pop it in, intall windoze, drivers etc & take an image off that. Or just leave it as it is & use it to migrate as/when u need to.

[Dave_07]

You think i could use my other drive, the maxtor 160bg one ? (see sig)

[0iD]

You think i could use my other drive, the maxtor 160bg one ?

You could create a partition on it with a clean install on it

[Dave_07]

How would that de done. (Still learing )

[Stoo]

You can also speed things up if you make a slipstreamed non attended xp install disk..

[dozer]

get norton ghost, select create image and point to a different drive, also select to compress it. id be suprised if it will fit on one cd, id recommend burning it to dvd, or you can span a few cds

[Nemeliza]

I thaught i was doing well with my 15mins to clean install on a Maxtor Raid 0 array. but 7mins isnt healthy.
Imaging is faster though as you dont even need to touch the keyboard once re-imaging begins.
The compression you use to image also makes a difference when re-imaging.

[Dave_07]

You can also speed things up if you make a slipstreamed non attended xp install disk..

Could you explain what slipstreamed non attended xp install disk is, i've never heard of that.

Aslo i was thinking about getting norton ghost, but not sure.
I do have an Acronis TrueImage image of my main drive take very near to when it was just windows on the drive (11.2gig) that is the only backup i have tho, and after recently being advised that you can never have enough different ways of backing up your datta im now looking into other backups for my backup lol Tho bearing in mind that i have never done a re-install of windows, ever, i have little experience in these matters.

[0iD]

I use True image & there's no advantage in geting Ghost imo. They both do the same job competantly.

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.p...ght=slipstream

[directhex]

Could you explain what slipstreamed non attended xp install disk is, i've never heard of that.

slipstreaming is creating your own windows install cd, with extra bits - service packs or drivers, for example. it's pretty tricky, or at the very least long & involved.

a non-attended disk is where you have a file or series of files either on the cd or other media (e.g. floppy) which fills in answers for the installer - for example, you could add your cd key automatically, removing the need to answer that bit. answer all the questions, and windows installs itself. again, you need a fairly good idea of answer file creation, there's some documentation out there on the net.

[Dave_07]

Cheers 0id & direct. The link in that thread looks very promising, not read it all yet, but it looks like a good second option to try. If not will post back.

In the mean time i need help with sommet that has been annoying me for the last half-hour. I can't seem to get to the the security settings services console thingy, apparently secpol.msc is the run command for it but windows just says it can't find it, and i've tried going via right clicking my computer then clicking manage to access the computer management console, which comes up ok, however the local users and groups folder is not listed there under the system tools thread.

What im trying to do is rename the guest & admin accounts
and add stronger passwords.. Any ideas ?

Cheers.