Mark Smith wrote:
You are right about the mass storage part. I accidentally reformatted
a back up drive because I got it confused with the internal. I
learned the hard way to have those unplugged. But the way I recall
the post, he listed printers and some other major hardware.


Printers often have card readers built in. I install Windows as often as 50
times a month on various computers. Most of those installs are highly
automated but at least 10 - 20 are standard installs booting from the CD. I
have learned the hard way to not have any external devices hooked up. It
doesn't save any time and often causes problems.

Kerry


I definitely would not unplug my external dial up modem. It has been
my experience that devices bought or made pre-XP release cause no
problem when reinstalling.

The problems I am facing now is that I have bought several things
that were made after XP. I can't wait to see what happens when I try
to reinstall XP with all my opticals being connected to a PCI card.
That is going to be fun.
"Kerry Brown" *a*m wrote in message
...
Mark Smith wrote:

snipped


And you are wrong anyway. You most certainly should have the devices
plugged up so XP can go ahead and install them. It is easier and
faster. And what the hell do you think happens when you plug in the
device? The OS tries to install it anyway.


You should not have USB devices plugged in when installing XP. It may
cause the install to delay or even hang while it tries to find
drivers. If they are mass storage devices and formatted XP may end
up on a partition other than C:. It is always best to install with
internal devices only and add external devices later.

Kerry