How Do I Completly Wipe my PC and Start From Scratch?

[makavelli]

as above please guys

i will be backing up my stuff on an external harddrive and i want to completly wipe my laptop so i can start fresh

please explain in basic terms as ive not done this b4

cheers

andy

 

[DougClio16v]

Smash it with a hammer.. Buy a new 1..





lol. Seriously idk bout lappy's but usually when it reboots on the load up screens it says "if you want to go into recovery mode press f9" or something like that and you have the option to restore the thing back to factory settings which will wipe everything. But thats on an XP home edition.. so may be different for yours.

 

[Bloooor]

hey mate, You will need your copy of Windows XP or whatever you use, You need to stick the disk in and reboot your machine, once it reboots press either F8 or F11 to get the bios screen up, once you have found how to get this up you need to find a section where you can change what order the 'floppy drive, CD-Rom drive and the hard drive' boot up. You need to change this to CD-Rom and then reboot again, once it reboots it should read from your windows disk and start with format of your hard drive/fresh install of Windows. you should just be able to follow the on screen instructions when it boots the disk, something like 'format in NTFS mode' and in '1 partition only' etc jus look for things like that. Don't have Fat32, ist the old hard drive system... sloooowwwww

If you have anymore questions mate, don't hesitate to ask.

Ads

 

[Clellandmc]

Smash it with a hammer.. Buy a new 1..





lol. Seriously idk bout lappy's but usually when it reboots on the load up screens it says "if you want to go into recovery mode press f9" or something like that and you have the option to restore the thing back to factory settings which will wipe everything. But thats on an XP home edition.. so may be different for yours.

It's F8 rather than F9

 

[DougClio16v]

Oh lol.. been a while

 

[sh33n]

Sort of depends what OS your are gonna reinstall and what version it is.

Usually I'd stick in an XP Pro CD, boot from the CD, fully format drive and then install windows.

 

[martynh]

Have you got a XP system disc or Manufactureres recovery disc? Stick one of these in on bootup and then follow the directions on screen

 

[makavelli]

ive got a copy of xp ready to go on

 

[Bloooor]

I would suggest printing off either this thread or finding a propper fully written out guide online mate, Its what I had to do cos if u forget one little bit lol you have no windows to help you...

Adam

 

[Mells]

are you trying to get rid of your porno collection?

 

[makavelli]

are you trying to get rid of your porno collection?

lol no

ive had the comp for a good few years and its started to run really slow and theres all sorts of crap on it

 

[martynh]

ive got a copy of xp ready to go on

Stick in, reboot the laptop, CD should boot automatically, you will be asked if you want to reapir windows in reinstall a fresh copy, follow the instructions on screen hey ho!

As long as you've every thing backed up you'll be fine.

 

[RichMcc]

Oh bring back the days of FDISK hahahha!!

Back up your shiznits first!!! Not on your hard drive!!!

Stick in Windows CD and reboot, it should ask if you want to boot from the CD. If it doesn't you'll need to go into the BIOS setup and change the boot order of devices so your CD drive is before your hard drive.
Restart.
Press any key to boot the CD.
If you want to be really sure delete the partition and create a new one, it should size it automatically. Format (NTFS is best), dont choose quick format either.
Let it run then install windows as normal. (I assume its XP?)

Make sure you have all the drivers you need first! burn em onto a CD and you'll save a load of headaches!

 

[oska]

I need to do this too. Do you have to reinstall all programs again, I've got tons?

 

[Bloooor]

affraid so mate, when you save everything make sure you save all the install files not just the shortcuts otehrwise you won't be able to reinstall any of them lol

 

[oska]

Arse!

 

[jay s]

i done this over the weekend, hd was full of s**t. laptop is sooo much faster now and dialogys now works which is a bonus as it did'nt work before.