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Introduction: If you have a media center computer which youve had to load up from scratch, then you probably know what a taks it is to get right. I own a Packard Bell (well it WAS anyway) and I managed to loose all the backup partition which meant that I could no longer simply reinstall windows by putting a specia boot disc in and kicking off the master resore fuction. I'll start off by letting you know this: If you bought a computer brand new (or its 2nd hand and hasnt has its partitions messed up by a tweeker) and it didnt come with the actual installation CDs for windows... NO, NOT THE BUNDLED PROGRAMS! I mean the real CDs which can install windows on any machine. If your didnt come with those CDs then you SHOULD have the operating system installation files stowed away in a secret partition on C:\. Thats something I found out by accident, as my machine didnt come with ANY CDs AT ALL. I found out in some forum abou this and tracked down the boot disk that would perform the paster restore. But now thats all usless to me, as I accidentally wiped that secret partition and that means I had to but a new installation disc. Very expensive mistake! I never knew that installing Windows Media Center Edition from scrathc was so hard! The thing is, I no longer had any of the driver for any of my hardware, it was all in that backup partition and the restoration process would have automatically installed them. So i want to the packard bell website, found my machine, and luckly they supplied all the drivers to download for all of the hardware in my box. I have had to reinstall windows on my machine so many times, each time has been different as I learn better ways to do it. And with this new problem of now having to do MCE from scratch instad of the normal XP-Pro, I have come accross many many many hard problems which took alot of experimenting to figure out. My new OS discs came with an update CD, all the latest patches. These i have never seen before cos i NEVER doesnload any auto-updates, waste of time to me. But this update CD was inportant, as it made media center tune into UHF as well as VHF, something which I have been wanting for a long time. The installation process, I have found, MUST be done in a specific order for it to work properly. not doing it right had me suffering from MCE not tuning into UHF, and randomly rebooting all the time. Lets Get Started! Installing windows: The best way i find to do a clean install is when selecting which disk and partition to install on, to actually delete the C: partition, resulting in 'raw' disk space, the creating a new partiton using all the raw space to install wondows on. Performing 'quick' format to NTFS is what i do, it works well. Setup will 'quick' format C: and install windows, and near then end it will REALLY confuse you!... At ANY time you may be asked during the installation to insert "Win XP SP2" CD, DONT DO IT! If you have the SP2 CD on hand, you actually dont need it, Setup is being difficult. Just eject WinXP-MCE Disc1 and load it in agene, click OK as your closing the drive door so that you know that its really seeking the CD drive (it'll pause). After doing this you'll find setup just resumes and keeps going even though you just hit Eject and pushed the drive closed agene. The only time you should EVER swap for a different CD during setup is when your asked to insert WinXP-MCE Disc #2, THATS IMPORTANT. When setup is finished with disc #2 it may be silly enough to ask for you SP2 disc agene, just pop the WinXP-MCE disc #1 back in the drive and click OK. When Windows FINALLY finished installing... You MUST do All of these tasks in THIS ORDER! Install .NET framework Version 1, then .NET Version1 Service Pack 1, then .NET Version 2. This is essential for the next task. .NET is avaliable for download here. Run the WinXP-MCE "Updates for Version 2005" CD. Now you can start installing your hardware. For my machine, I have a Blackbird tuner based on a Conexant chipset. Also known as Leadtek PVR2000. You dont want to download the .exe version of the drivers, they dont work. Click here for the drivers. Go to the device manager, find the Blackbird card, and click Update driver. Remeber it'll be listed as an unknown device before you do this. When it askes for location, dont search. You choose the drivers location, direct it to the drivers folder and it will install. NOW RESTART, even if you havent been asked by the computer to do so. Now start Media Center for the first time and go through the setup process, scanning for stations and such. When thats complete and MCE is ready to use, you still cannot watch TV until you install an MPEG2 decoder. I purchased the Nvidia codec, it works good and isnt expensive. Now the TV should work. If applicable, install your 2nd TV tuner card. After its installed, restart the computer! run MCE setup agene ("set up tv signal"), it should show a page during setup that lists both TV cards with ticks next to each one. This is what yo want to see. Now MCE will be able to use both cards. That concludes the setup of Windows and Media Center. Other Information:  Media Center Backup : Backs up MCE schedules, channels guides and more. Great when re-installing windows. How to backup your operating system. There is a way of clonging your hard drive, without the need to actually back it up cluster for cluster which can be VERY time consuming. I have a 2nd hard drive inside my computer that i take out when its not needed, its soul purpose it to backup my OS and essential files. On the 2nd hard drive, install windows so that if your main OS crashes, you can boot from the backup hard drive and retreave your files before rstoring. Create a new folder in the root of your 2nd hard drive and lable it something like "C DRIVe BACKUP1". Using Tyralynn file syncroniser, select in the left panel C: (under My computer, just click the C Drive without expanding it) and in the right panel slect your new folder in hard drive 2 "C DRIVe BACKUP1". In the collum on buttons running betweek the panels click the very bottom one, it will ask you if youd like to add/delete files from "C DRIVe BACKUP1" and make it identical to "C:", select YES and it will make an exact copy of C: in that folder. If the time comes that windows crashes and you want to restore back to the point which you backed it up in the folder on your 2nd hard drive "C DRIVe BACKUP1", just boot up into the backup OS and go into my computer, open C: and delete ONLY the WINDOWS folder, PROGRAM FILES folder and DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS folder. !!!!!!!BE CAREFUL!!!!!!!! DO NOT RESTART YOUR PC UNTIL YOU HAVE RESTORED ALL THE DATA BACK ONTO C: DRIVE!!! Failing to do so will result in the computer not being able to boot as it relied on C:'s files for booting! A mistake that i have made TWICE! VERY ANNOYING. Now that C: is clear, go into Tyralynn and do the reverse of what you did to back windows up:Select in the left panel your new folder in hard drive 2 "C DRIVE BACKUP1". And in the right panel slect C:(under My computer, just click the C Drive without expanding it) In the collum on buttons running betweek the panels click the very bottom one, it will ask you if youd like to add/delete files from "C: drive" and make it identical to "C DRIVE BACKUP1", select YES and it will rstore C: to the way it was when you backed it up. ATTENTION! Dont try to be smart thinking that im silly for doing it the long way; deleting the files from C: myself when the Tyralynn will already delete any files which are different then the ones backed up. Some files in C: may still be current in the backup folder, but that doesnt mean the computer wont get confused. you MUST make ALL the files on C: mate EXACTLY to the ones in backup, or you'll be in alot of trouble. Trust me, Ive done it and windows really doesnt like it when you let Tyralynn do all the work. you must clear C: yourself before restoring. And that concludes that.  Tarylynn File Syncroniser : Great for making backups. |