System Crash: Clean Install

What would you do if your Windows XP system locks up? The problem I had is explained in my "YouSayToo" blog. In my case around a week ago, after trying to find the best solution and saving back up of my data from my notebook Lenovo 3000 Y400 Type 9454-25A to a DVD, I determined to reinstall the whole system from zero (clean install) with the provided original Windows XP Home Edition SP2 and the drivers from Lenovo. I also intend to use its marvelous "One-Key Recovery" to save me from disaster later on. But I do not hope it will happen again :-) The smooth steps in brief are as follows:

1. Clean install windows by erasing all the existing partition on the hard drive of the notebook may have and assigning it as one big partition on whole hard drive as C:\ . Installing window is quite straightforward. You must make the notebook boot up from your system CD. Just follow the procedure including formatting the partition, filling in some entries and then installing and setting up the system which can be done without your attention or interfering.
2. After finishing the installation and setup by the robotic acts, you may give your personal touch on some parts of the system. In my case, I disable some services that are not necessary and may make your system less secure, set the environment and look-feel according to my preference plus set the system for best performance option such as disabling CD autorun etc in my case.
3. Then I install all the drivers for this kind of Lenovo in the right order and right choices as stated in its manual as follows: Chipset Driver 945GM, Graphic Card Discrete NVidia, Sound Card UAA driver firstly and then Audio setup, Foxconn Bluetooth 2.0 Plus EDR/Broadcom 2045 Bluetooth 2.0 USB Device (after enabling it firstly and you must install it by running D:\WinXP\Bluetooth\Setup.exe from driver CD otherwise all the bluetooth drivers are not installed correctly - it means that you cannot install it by just inserting the CD when the device found icon appears or when windows asks you to give the driver after autodetecting), Agere Systems HDA Modem, Energy Cut, LAN Card Realtek RTL8139/810x, Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Net driver using "Intel (NET w3x32) net / Intel (w29n51) net" (also after turning it on - running from driver CD D:\WinXP\Wireless Lan\INTEL\DPInst.exe), Touchpad driver for Discrete Graphic Card, Card Reader RICOH R5C832/843 Flash Media Driver, and the last Easy Button Driver (discrete) for custom buttons on laptop. The process is long and time consumed because you have to restart for each installation. NEWLY REVISED!
4. Now you can shutdown the complete and clean system. Then turning the notebook ON with "One-Key Recovery" button at exactly the left side of the power button. It will bring you to a custom screen with only 4 choices: make a backup partition image, restoring the whole partition to the last backup, clearing / deleting the saved backup, or exits the screen and brings you to normal boot-up. Please make a backup image so that you can use it if there is a disaster. You can have a clean install system again complete with already all its drivers in just a few minutes without going through step 1-3
5. My clean system can now be updated to service pack 3 (SP3) and other further updates such as drivers updates for LAN etc. I have to update the system to SP3 because I need WPA2-PSK for relatively securer wireless connection to a wireless router, in this case Linksys WRT54G. I am a bit disappointed with Linksys WRT54G Version 7 because its firewall setting is not clear or strange and not the same as mentioned in the manual (there is no inbound traffic policy). The configuration is a quite tiresome (a fail product?). You had better choose Netgear WGR614 than Linksys WRT54G.
6. The system needs protection from the beginning. Install a good firewall and anti virus plus anti spyware in order. In my case, I install "Comodo Firewall Pro with Defense+". You may not install the Defense+ so that you use Comodo firewall feature only because the Defense+ is a little bit chatty, many interruptions especially during learning phase. If it is so, you should not select Defense+ at the beginning of setup. I set the firewall mode of network defense to 'safe mode" and proactive defense+ to "clean pc mode". If you want to use this "clean pc mode", you must be sure that your clean install of system is free of malware from the beginning. Setting and tuning it up, then install "AVG 8 Anti Virus + Anti Spyware plus E-Mail Scanner". Setting up e-mail scanner in AVG 8 is a little bit tricky. If you do not set the rules in firewalls and the pop3/smtp server in AVG correctly, the e-mail scanner won't work. AVG acts as a proxy between e-mail clients such as Outlook Express (which I use due to its simplicity) and the pop3/smtp server at gmail or yahoo mail in my case for instance. I will post the procedure if anyone needs it. NEW! I have post the procedure of AVG8 personal e-mail scanner configuration in this blog...
7. After running both firewall and anti-* smoothly, scanning your entire hard drive and tuning your windows system, you may continue to install other useful software or freeware as I have mentioned in my updated previous post. Firstly I install CCleaner, Mozilla Firefox and Addons including McAfee Siteadvisor, Adobe Reader, OpenOffice and HijackThis. Configure them one by one up to your preference and judgement
8. Last step is reinstalling my file backups to "My Documents" only so that the files will not be shattered around causing them difficult to find. At this time, you may also install the drivers for external devices that will be attached to the system such as printer, scanner, or Nokia PC Suite etc. You may also install these driver at step 3 above, so that these can be updated too if the new ones available at windowsupdate. Then running HijackThis and looking for funny or suspicious signs. I hope not to see those in future time though :-)

That's it for now. Just a brief one. Later I will post the setting of Comodo Firewall Pro with Defense+ and personal e-mail scanner of AVG 8. Any comments or even critics, please welcome dude!