OMG, that's a lot of crap!! LOL

Story:
Bought a 500gig External HD, moved everything from the system drive that was important over to the big drive(80 gigs).
Formatted the 80gig, Re-installed XP-pro, now I'm in the process of re-installing and rebuilding my work station enviroment. "this is not fun"!

Be looking forward to getting back on task with Forum menu system and Graphics.

Did the very same thing 5 months ago, but soon everything will be worth it.

One of the first t things that I do with external hard drives is format them to NTFS.   For compatibility reasons External Hard drives are shipped in the FAT32 Format, that way they are compatible with Windows 98 etc..

Now the reason for the re-format is... I tend to deal with large files sometimes over 4GB this could be archives, video files etc..

the FAT File system has a file size limitation and wont allow you to store 4GB+ Files.

Just a few months ago I went through this process of backing up everything and starting all over its not fun.... especialy when you find out afterwards all the little tweaks that you had made you're system/programs that you have to figure out how to do again.

Sounds like you know what you are doing and quite capable of the task.  If you ever do run into any kind of technical trouble... let me know.

Will do, Thanx!

Well gang...about to embark on this path as well. Am looking at moving up to an HP. they call it a media center, AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 5000+ w/ 20" screen, 3 G Ram,etc. , plus am also adding an external 500G drive to use tween both machines[ new one and current e machine] so thanx for the NTFS tip Analog-X64**.** Hopefully when this is done I'll be able to actually finish a Bryce render and join you fine folks in some of the challenges. Oddly enough my machine seemed to render TG2 just fine but always choked on Bryce...sigh...we can't have that now can we..

My partner in crime at the studio where i work has a habit of wanting to re-install pc's every few months because he suddenly feels they've turned 'slow'. I'm SO used to this haha. Even worse is when other people decide your  computer is a mess and needs a 'clean-up'. One time my entire development workstation got deleted cuz sum1 thought the virtual machine's image file was a swapfile... why anyone would even attempt to delete the swapfile is also beyond me but thats another question lol.

Either way, just try to organize ur stuff basically. It makes things like re-installing less of a hassle. Also, once you've got a clean installation set up, make an image of it so you can just quickly recover it in the future.

--
Ray

Here are couple of tips.

1.  Ghosting (Imaging).  You basically re-install everything the way you want it and once you are happy with the setup... You make an Image of the hard drive onto a DVD or whatever and the next time you want to re-install you simply re-image the drive with the previously imaged system and BAM!!! you are up and running in matter of minutes.

1. Virtual Machines... Microsoft has a Free Virtual Machine product there are also commerical ones.  You basically run the system in a Virtual image... there are many drawbacks to this.. but its great especially if you wantn to test a new installation of a piece of software without making a mess of you're working system.

So for example Bryce 7 is release >:)  you can install it in a Vritual Machine and see how it works before commiting to installing it on  you're production system.

Well I have a new computer, ATHLON dual core64 bit 4400+ w '20 " screen a 320 HDD and a .5Tb USB Drive. Gonna go with the onboard vid for a bit as it has 256MB omb there and I have 4 Gb RAM so I can handle that fairly well without slowing anythin down. At the moment I'm in waiting mode whilst alll the files on my old 80Gb HDD transfers to the USB. My geek/technie came by and wrote a script to do it so I just have to wait...sigh...he says 4 hours...I think tomorrow morning it'll be done...LOL,,,seems to be going slowly to me. Anyhoo tomorrow I can start re-installing as all my installs are on that drive...double sigh.. ...

Congrats Bobby!!

Thanx mate...but the waiting is killing me...literally everything I use and the installs for the apps is on that 80G drive. Have a DOS box on my desktop saying

Copying Files, please wait...
ECHO is on.
Copying old D Drive

and there's still the E Drive...been running since 5:00 P M my time and it's now 11:07 here....sigh.. ...

:b_drool:@bobbystahr
You got your computer back while I am still waiting in the internet cafe ... Should be here tomorrow or Sunday. Now the next step for me is to put back all of my installs... And that is going to be hard!

I'll give you the rundown on what system it is when I get it.

:b_bashful:

TS
 From the internet cafe awaiting my new computer...

Apparently the machine ran into a "code block" ...LOL and stopped copying at 23Gb of the D Drive and hung there all night till I called my tech in the A M and he told me to just close the command promt. I did so and had it done[file transfer/copying]in unde 4 hours by hand....a triumph of man over computer.....well partially...I forgot to save out a list of the installed PS plugins I use and now none of the actions I did save will work till I figure out what's missing. Still have to find where I stashed Bryce 5.5 install so I can try an actual full render without crashing...that should be a treat.. ...

Congrats on the new system.... we will now expect more Renders from you!!! >:)

Yay Bobby!!!

You are gonna hate me but I just got a Q6600E Intel Core 2 Quad!!

Wooohooo!

And I now have 1 terrabyte of external storage, (2 x 500gigs external drives), and 2 drives on the PC adding up to 660Gigs (160 gig and 500 gig) - so that I can now ghost my operating system to the 160gig drive for backups)

Not to mention you finally have room for Poser...dig dig...LOL...I'm doin o k Fran...AMD 4400+ 64x2, 500GB USB External, 320GB and a 40GB system drive...I should survive if I can ever figure out how to re install that 5.5 offline...the number that comes with it don't seem to work so am still Bryce-less...sigh.. ...HELP PLEASE.. ...

I am back! Got my new computer but it's missing my favorite softwares. Need to go and re-install them. The new computer is an AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core 3.0GigHz with 2.98 GB ram with Nvida GeoForce 750 video card with a 760 GB Hard Drive and a TV-Video capture card (Win XP Pro)

I still have some of the rendering loaded on the new drives but have to re install Bryce and some other software that I was using in association with Bryce. Right now I am one tired funster!

TS

:b_tired:

Bobby, have you tried downloading the prog again?........it'll come with a new code, and it's free.
Just don't trash your old one, any presets you have saved can be incorporated into the new file set.

Quote - Bobby, have you tried downloading the prog again?........it'll come with a new code, and it's free.
Just don't trash your old one, any presets you have saved can be incorporated into the new file set.

I just checked the Bryce 5.5 download site and it had this text to it.

"You'll have to register your copy of Bryce on the publishers web-site to gain access to your free Bryce serial number."

So maybe Bobby needs to look at Daz site and serials available to him?

Bobby's got a monster! Bobby's got a monster! WTG!!!!

Oh AND Fran!!!!
Congrats guys. Now see what Bryce can REALLY do!!!!!!

:woot:

Must be a springtime thing, lots-o-people upgrading.

Some nice systems there, nice one guys! I would love one, but need to find a way to upgrade my wallet first! lol
It's amazing though, how much the price has dropped in recent years. I got my first computer 5 years ago, and for the same price today, I could get one at least twice as good!