C
Fri Mar 07 17:13:55 PST 2008
"Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]" <neil@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:1jf3t356li2cljltlhbl474lijn6n6n8ab@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 5 Mar 2008 22:31:55 -0500, "C.B."
> <notreallyc.b.mullen@windowslive.com> wrote:
>
>> My son's laptop, running XP Home and approximately eighteen months
>> old,
>>is so full of crap I've decided to reformat and do a clean install of his
>>OS. He has, in his WMP 11 library, close to 30GB of music, videos and
>>pictures he wants to save. I assume all of these are located elsewhere in
>>folders on the laptop. It's my understanding that the WMP library
>>basically
>>contains only links to the files in these folders as opposed to storing
>>these files within WMP itself.
>
>
> Some media library data is stored within the files - the rest can be
> usually rebuilt pressing F3 when you restore the files, to scan for
> media file changes.
>
> If he's bought any DRM online store content, be very careful and
> establish you can re-acquire the licenses for that content or it may
> not be playable on restore.
>
> Synctoy might help to keep track of the changes between moves, and
> help you move the content off and back on again after reinstall :
>
>
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx
>
>
>> What is the best way to save these files? I was thinking that I would
>>simply copy or move them from their current file/folder locations to one
>>of
>>my Desktop external drives and then return them to his laptop once the
>>clean
>
>
> You can return them in most cases (eg if they're all MP3 music or many
> video files) however there may be codecs needed for playback which
> will also need to be added back. So be prepared that some files may
> not play immediately - codec download is available for common MS
> formats, other codecs will need to be reinstalled manually as needed.
>
>
>>install was finished. My intention is to eliminate the recovery sector on
>>his hard drive and create a single partition. He has an actual
>>installation
>>disk for the XP operating system so he doesn't need the recovery sector.
>
> In fact it's better to do this the other way round. Create one (or
> several) partitions specifically for the content. That way when you
> need to repeat the reinstall, which sounds inevitable - you don't have
> to zap the content partition or move the files off and back on the PC.
>
> Keep the external drive as a backup - it probably took a long time to
> find and store the content, and if the hard drive dies (they all do
> eventully) you'll be flavour of the month for being able to provide a
> last known good backup of the content.
>
> Again, Synctoy can help in the backup process, to copy only new and
> changed files to/from the backup device.
>
> HTH
> Cheers - Neil
> ------------------------------------------------
> Digital Media MVP : 2004-2008
>
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs
Mr. Smith,
Thank you very much for your reply. I appreciate the assistance. The
answers provided by you and zachd will certainly make things easier and more
trouble free.
C.B.
--
It is the responsibility and duty of everyone to help the underprivileged
and unfortunate among us.