May 2006

By M. MADHAVAN

Moving the OS

ONE of the first computer upgrades that you should consider is a new hard disk if you have a burgeoning digital collection.

Although you could use the new hard disk to just store data, you should consider moving the operating system to the newer, faster and roomier hard disk.

This can be done rather easily using third party software without resorting to installing a fresh copy of Windows.

Clone it

We recommend Acronis True Image 9.0 Home, which can easily and quickly clone the operating system from one hard disk to another with just a few easy steps.

It is pricey — Acronis True Image 9.0 Home costs US$49.99(RM190) — but the utility has a few cool features, which make it worthwhile.

You should also partition the new hard disk — divide it into smaller sections so that you can manage it better.

You should have one partition for the operating system and programs, and one just for your data. So, if for any reason, you wish to erase the operating system and start from scratch, your data will be safe in the other partition. Of course, you can have more than two partitions if you wish to micromanage even more but we leave this up to you.

Once you install the second hard disk, launch Acronis True Image 9.0 Home and choose Add New Disk and follow the on-screen instructions to partition it.

You will need at least one primary partition to install the operating system. Have more if you wish to install more than one operating system.

Otherwise, just have one primary partition and select Logical Partition for the other one. Before you can use the partitions, you have to format it and we suggest that you use the NTFS file system for both partitions if you are planning to use Windows XP.

Also, before moving the content of your hard disk to the new partition, we suggest that you do a little housecleaning, as you don't want to transfer junk.

Removing programs

To remove unwanted programs, click Start then choose Control Panel and look for the Add/Remove Programs icon. Click on the program you want remove, then hit the Remove button that appears next to the name of the app and follow the on-screen instructions.

While you are there, also click on Add/Remove Windows Components, and remove any Windows components that you don't use. Our popular candidates are MSN Explorer and Windows Messenger.

And because we don't use Windows XP's indexing service — which supposedly speeds up file searches — we also uninstalled this service.

To remove the other junk on your hard disk (like temporary files) we resorted to CCleaner, a freeware utility that is tons better than the built-in one disk cleanup utility. CCleaner is really fast and efficient at removing Internet history, cookies, temporary files (including temp files from third party applications such as Adobe Acrobat, WinZip and Nero), log files and such.

It is also has a registry cleaner that can remove unused and old entries, including file extensions, ActiveX controls, fonts and so on.

Once you are done, just choose the Clone Disk entry on Acronis True Image 9.0 Home and follow the instructions to clone your hard disk. You can then wipe off the older hard disk and use to store or back up data.

Wipe them out

If your operating system is really sluggish, then moving it to a new hard disk isn't really going to make that much of a difference.

In this case, we suggest that you back up your data onto a CD or DVD using a burner and install a fresh copy of Windows. But before you do that, make sure that you have all the latest drivers for your motherboard, graphics card, sound card, modem and peripherals handy.

Once you install Windows XP, make sure you update it to Service Pack 2 and the latest security updates. Also, install your important programs — such antivirus, office suite, etc.

Then use Acronis True Image 9.0 Home to create an image of your primary partition — a complete backup of its contents.

You can save this image on your other partition, old hard disk or on a CD or DVD.

The next time Windows becomes sluggish, or when your PC encounters irrecoverable errors or is infected by a virus, you can restore a fresh copy of Windows — complete with the security updates and all your important applications — from the image.

Best of all, this method is a lot faster than doing it manually.

Also, Acronis True Image 9.0 Home has a cool feature that allows you to mount your backup image as a drive so that you can copy the files from it.

Of course, you can update the image as you install more apps or create multiple images.