Q. What is the best way to do a clean installation of Windows XP Pro on a Dell Dimension 4100 Pentium III 733 with 256 megabytes of RAM? Is there a tutorial anywhere that steps me through it? Also, can I install a new, larger hard drive and keep the old one as a D: drive just to get to the data that is on it? Can I boot from the XP CD and expect it to automatically load the operating system onto the new hard drive? If I can keep the old hard drive as D:, would it be better to put it into the case before or after I install XP? I plan to update the BIOS before I do anything.
A. You will be able to boot directly from the CD, and Windows XP will step you through the procedure.
Some things you may need to check: Make sure your CD drive is in the boot path. This can be checked in your BIOS (available at bootup, usually by pressing the F2 or Delete key). I would move the CD to the first boot selection.
Using your old drive as extra storage is an excellent idea. You will need to make sure that the jumper pins on the drive are set for Slave or, better yet, Cable Select. Put the old drive on the second connection on the data cable. If your motherboard has an empty secondary IDE slot, that too may be used. You can install it in the case at any time. If you do it before you install Windows XP, then all your drive letter assignments will be set. If you do it after, XP will move your CD drive (most likely D: at this time) to the next assignment of E: when it makes your second hard drive the D: drive. But either way, it can be connected at any time.
Word document won't print
Q. A friend running Windows XP cannot print from a Word document. Is there a known issue with this and is there a fix available?
A. Are you saying the friend can't print from Word, or he can't print a particular document? I've had this happen with a particular document, and I couldn't find any valid reason for it. The work-around is to open the document in WordPad and save it under a new name. This seems to get rid of whatever embedded code was preventing it from printing.
Stymied by encryption
Q. After a crash, I reinstalled my operating system. Now I cannot decrypt My Documents, which I had encrypted and backed up on a CD-RW. I neglected to save my Security Certificate on the disk and my new one does not work because of a different thumbprint. Is there any way I could decrypt these?
A. Microsoft has an extensive article on this subject. I did not see any clear cut method to accomplish this without the saved Data Recovery Agent, or DRA, key. But the article also includes many other references, one of which may get you going in the right direction if it is possible. Search for "Data Protection and Recovery in Windows XP" on Microsoft's support Web site.
Backing up a hard drive
Q. Do you have suggestions for backing up my home computer?
A. The way I do backups is to make an image copy to another hard drive. Hard drives are inexpensive, the largest being much less expensive than a tape or Zip drive. It does take some extra work to connect, but you also could use one of the new USB hard drives. They've come down in price a lot recently.
PowerQuest has a product, Drive Image, that makes this type of thing very easy. (Symantec also has a similar product called Norton Ghost.) If you do the backup in bits and pieces, the things you would want to select through the backup wizard are System State (the registry) and your personal files. Your Outlook Express files are buried under your identities personal settings. To check where this is, click Tools, Options in OE, then the maintenance tab. Click the "Store Folder" button to see where they are being kept. It will be a long hierarchy of folder names. You will find all your OE files there - one for each folder (Inbox, Sent, Deleted, etc.). They all end with .DBX.
