To reformat a laptop..

[Tails]

Now that I got my power horse.. I want to reformat this. I don't know how and I never did any back up disks.

[thetedster]

Well a reformat takes a Disc from the Operating system and some know how first..

1. Make sure you go to your manufacturers web site and download the Drivers for your PC. Either Burn them onto a CD or move them onto a USB thumb drive. if you don't, you won't be able to do anything with your PC after the reformat. MAKE SURE YOU DOWNLOAD THE ETHERNET AND/OR WIRELESS DRIVER.
(Without that, your screwed without another PC)

2. Pop the operating system disc into the PC and then restart your PC. During the start-up (Black screen before "Windows Loading" Screen) press either F12 or F11 repeatedly until a different screen comes up. it will ask you where you'd like to boot your PC from. Select your CD-Rom Drive.

3. Your PC will start getting it ready for Windows. After maybe 15-20 minutes, you'll see some prompts, follow them until you get to a point where you'll see your hard drive information. You need to DELETE This information, because you want a clean install. you need to select them, and usually Pressing D will delete them. it will ask if your sure, just press Yes. make sure before this step that you've taken the necessary steps to get any of your information, because it will be gone after this step.

3. it will then ask you if you'd like to make a new partition when your finished, make one and include your entire hard drive space. This will make it so that you just have one hard drive, you don't need to be fancy about it.

4. Then it will ask you where to install Windows, choose the new partition, or if you didn't partition it choose the hard drive space that is there. When it asks you if you want a quick or complete NTFS format, choose complete. This way there is very little in the way of problems.

5. Windows is now installing...this takes time. Follow the prompts andf you've pretty much done the hard stuff. When you FINALLY (about 3 hours) getting to your Windows operating system Normal screen again, you will need to take that thumb drive/CD that you made with the drivers, and start installing them now. Afterwards, you'll need to install all of your windows updates.

The process is going to take you about 6 hours, including windows updates, speed of your internet connection, installation of drivers, and the full encompass of installing the operating system.


Thats as good as it gets on explanations, reply if you have other questions Tails.

Ted

---------- Post added 12-13-2010 at 07:23 PM ---------- Previous post was 12-11-2010 at 02:21 PM ----------

was this useful?


Ted

[Tails]

Sorry I didn't get to reply sooner, on work week.

I do not have operating system disc. Mine came from the factory so windows was already loaded. Would it be best to just get a new disc then? I know Kong talked about Vista without the bloat before. I DO have external USB drive (8 GB) however. so basically everything is covered but the windows issue.

Thanks for the reply. :) Knowing this comp 6+ hours, it's a piece of crap.

I did have another question, what's the best disc(s) to create a backup and how many would you need?

[thetedster]

To Make a back-up, you would need DVD-R's specicially Minus R's because they will be the most compatible with your device.

otherwise why not just reformat it using the Recovery partition? Usually that can occur by pressing F11 during start-up or F10, depending on your machine. Then follow the prompts to reformat to factory default settings.

From there, after it's finished, it will prompt you to make recovery discs for your PC if it's fairly new. If it's an older PC and came with Discs but you lost them, just order a new batch from the manufacturer. It's cheaper to spend around 17 dollars on a new batch of CD's then to buy a 150 dollar operating system disc.

Ted

[Tails]

Thanks! I think those are on sale at my work too.

Hmm you can really do that? I never looked into it fearing I'd screw this computer up (and the fact i need to move things over first) I got it in Dec 2007 (3 years old now), so maybe? I can just restore then. Appreciate the help!

[Tails]

I just reformatted it.. forgot to get my wepkey and after a few hurdles it's working great!