posted
Okay, assuming I have all my personal files backed up and all the assorted program disks I need, what would be the correct way of going about reformatting a hard drive and reloading Windows XP Home? My laptop has just gotten unbearably slow, and I really think the best thing for it would be to just wipe it clean. But I don't want to really screw it up of course, so can someone give me some pointers?
Saltah'na
Chinese Canadian, or 75% Commie Bastard.
Member # 33
posted
If yours is a branded laptop, say HP, Toshiba, Acer, and the whatnot, you should have some "restore disks" that came with your machine. Simply pop in Disc 1 and follow the instructions. The program simply copies a new partition on top of your old one basically reformatting your machine and reinstalling your OS.
If yours is not, say Asus, MSI, iBuddie, or some unbearable brand, then your best bet is to use your OS cd. You should be able to reformat the machine before it copies the Windows programs onto your computer.
-------------------- "And slowly, you come to realize, it's all as it should be, you can only do so much. If you're game enough, you could place your trust in me. For the love of life, there's a tradeoff, we could lose it all but we'll go down fighting...." - David Sylvian FreeSpace 2, the greatest space sim of all time, now remastered!
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Of course, you could just delete the Windows folder and reinstall it without formatting the hard drive. That way you shouldn't be deleting anything that you might miss. Although you could still end up forgetting the odd program or driver that you no longer have the original discs for.
Have you tried cleaning out the registry first? It might make a reinstall unneccessary. (I say this because while some people seem to take great pleasure in an old fashioned format and install, I don't. I have better things to do with my time, thank you very much, and if you can avoid it by simply running a registry clean-up, a spyware scan, and removing all that crap you've almost certainly got loading at start up, so much the better.)
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
What Liam said. Try giving it a good cleaning, also see if you have funlove.4099 or some such. A friend of mine, yes, I do have them, got it, slowed him right down to a crawl. I was out of town and he had someone else look at it. That ass did half a restore, not even asking if anything had been updated that the original didn't have drivers for. It works nice now though.
So, yes, clean first.
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
Actually, I'm pretty certain that installing the latest Norton antivirus software has a lot to do with it, seeing as it happened after that was installed. I found something somewhere (that I can't find again) that said you would need to completely uninstall the 2004 version before installing 2006 or you would have slowdown problems. I had the 2003 version. I tried uninstalling Norton, but the slowdown is persistent. So basically, I'm clueless as to what I should do next. The computer is functional, but I don't want to do anything any more CPU intensive beyond basically surfing the net.
posted
Tell it not to start NAV on start up, Safe Mode, and uninstall the offending programs. Both NAVs, and install the 06.
http://www.nirsoft.net/ has a program that is supposed to work under XP, Startup. It is supposed to disable programs from starting, as you want. I have used it under Win98 before, but not XP. Disable NAVs from strting, restart, and uninstall.
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
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-------------------- Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil...prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon...
posted
Do you know how to tell what programs you've got running at startup? Give us a list.
Also, try downloading AVG or Avast! and using one of them to do a virus scan. Use the Windoctor part of Norton too, if you haven't uninstalled it already.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I ended up turning off System Restore on my Gateway M505X and took out all the background crap that was running on my laptop. I also installed McAfee Quick Clean to get rid of the useless stuff in my hard drive. What kind of computer do you have anyway?
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
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