Formatting Hard Drive

[riz]

My Pc is 3 yrs old and i have never Defragged/Scan disk or Formatted it. By its unusual sounds/performance i think i need to format it tbh:dapprove:.

I am trying to find my XP cd's. And i am in the process of organising the folders and backing them up onto my external hard drive and DVD.

How do i keep all my mozilla bookmarks?
Any other tips that will help in this process? Oh and how long does it take?

 

[riz]

oh i also have a Dell computer if that helps as i know there is something unusual about their partitions or summat.


im not very pc savvy tbh

 

[Saundo]

You will need to back up anything you want to keep such as your bookmarks to CD before you start. Bookmarks are in c:/documentsAndSettings/USERNAME/Mozilla/aplicationData/

 

[Tom]

Dont format it, defrag it.

 

[Aluco]

have you tried opening the case and cleaning inside in 3 years also ?

If not then cleaning the inside out gently with a vac cleaner nozzle will help it out and maybe cure your fans constantly kicking in and other noises.

 

[rctempire]

O&O defag program. Leave it on over night and it should be done by then.

Well worth doing a defrag then clearing out temps with ATF cleaner and using CCleaner to clean up the registry after the defrag.

 

[riz]

O&O defag program. Leave it on over night and it should be done by then.

Well worth doing a defrag then clearing out temps with ATF cleaner and using CCleaner to clean up the registry after the defrag.

erm... what does this mean?

Dell have a restore programme imbedded into the PC. So i dont need the CD's

 

[riz]

bump

 

[Michael172]

lol @ dell's restore program.


Go "get" The copy of windows you want. (vista 32 bit or XP 32 bit)

When you have burned it to the dvd or cd. Restart the PC.

Press delete during Post IE when it beeps n s**t, or keep pressing delete and the bios should pop up.

Scoot about and look for the boot sequence and boot from the cd first.

Save and exit bios.

Press any key when prompted, let windows boot up and foolow the rest of the windows setup.

Once its done have fun finding the drivers for your hardware n what not ( u shud do this first before formatting yo)

 

[riz]

whats wrong with Dell's restore programme? sounds easy to me

 

[Michael172]

Dont know ive never owned a dell, but then ive not owned a pre built pc since i was about 13.

 

[Ronnie R]

if you have a restore bulit into your dell, just go through the options and formart it that way "back to facotry settings"....If not, you need to reload windows on to the HD... this is piss easy, simple put the driver cd in the drive turn laptop on, keep pressing f8 or 10 to get into boot menu, boot from CD, follow the steps it will then ask you to insert a windows cd , eject the driver cd, put windows in, click any once in the drive (give about 5 seconds), should boot up again, press f8 or 10 to boot from cd, partion the hd, simple put how much you want to use of your HD. click next, next next ... wait about 30-40 mins... job done

 

[Ronnie R]

^ or pc

 

[Mike_182]

The Dell restore stuff is actually pretty good, but to start with I'd just use something like Raxco's PerfectDisk to try and sort out your hard disk - do a full defrag, then system files (restart required), then a full defrag and you should be back up to speed unless it's thoroughly borked.

 

[riz]

what is system files?

 

[Michael172]

Look just go pay someone to format the thing.