[P1] Archive and Install

[Jack Rodgers]

>   Zeroing out your drive and doing a clean install is your best
> Archive and Install option, and it's easy (but time consuming).

Zeroing is only necessary if you are selling a drive or installing a 
used drive.

> Then click Erase.  You have just zeroed
> out your HD.

No, you have erased the database of file names and locations. The drive 
still contains all of the data but that will be overwritten at some 
future time.

Zeroing a drive is when you select the option to overwrite the drive 
with ones and zeros, hence zeroing a drive. That process will take a 
long time with todays double digit gigabyte drives. It isn't necessary 
if you keep your drive since every bit of data becomes inert when the 
database of names and locations is erased or overwritten. There may be 
an exception for a virus which only needs to be read but I have not 
heard of any such virus.

****

The prime feature of such a clean install is to remove all old software 
and corrupt files from your drive. There are shareware apps that no 
longer work under Jaguar that will cause problems. I used Foxbase 2.1 
through quite a number of system upgrades. I think I may have started 
with 7.x and it worked well until System 9.x when it began to corrupt 
its script files. They would be rewritten when closed and unusual 
characters began to appear and I would have to open the files and 
delete those characters. One of my favorite shareware apps also made 
the journey and then died.

It has always been my policy to buy the new upgrade, say Jaguar, and do 
an erase and clean install. I violated it with Jaguar and suffered the 
consequences. Once I did the clean install, all of the problems I 
encountered disappeared. Not everyone had these problems but that was 
the solution.

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Boycott French Kissing

jackrodgers at earthlink.net
http://www.jackrodgers.com