Restoring Your Computer

[Guest]

Hello, I was curious if its possible to completely restore your computer or
your hard drive to how it was when you first bought your computer, or so
there is no unessential files on your hard drive.
I have all these random files all over the place on my computer and I would
like to just wipe it clean.

Thanks for your help.

 

[peter]

If you bought your system from one of the large computer companies with XP
and programs pre installed they would also have provided either a recovery
CD or a Hidden Recovery Partition on the hard drive.Each company has their
own way of starting this recovery process by means of the hidden
partition...The CD is easy.insert and restart.In order to find out which one
your system has you will need to find and read the manual that came with it,
If it is a local computer shop sale and they have provided you with the XP
CD and various other CD's that hold the Motherboard drivers/Sound Card
drivers/Video card drivers...as well as the various programs that you
use..then it is a matter of booting from the XP CD and starting the install
procedure..which should happen automatically...and during this install watch
for the option to "format" the hard drive...do so and then continue with the
install.Once XP is installed and running you will then need to install the
motherboard drivers from the mobo CD...Video Drivers...sound drivers(a lot
of times part of mobo drivers) and then all of your programs.

Please let us know which of the above you have.....and if you need more
information.
peter

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hello, I was curious if its possible to completely restore your computer or
your hard drive to how it was when you first bought your computer, or so
there is no unessential files on your hard drive.
I have all these random files all over the place on my computer and I would
like to just wipe it clean.

Yes. Is yours an OEM computer--one made by one of the major
manufacturers like Dell, Gateway, HP, etc?

If so, OEM vendors are required by their agreement with Microsoft to
give you a means of reinstalling, should it be necessary. They can do
this in one of three ways:

1. An OEM copy of Windows
2. A restore CD
3. A hidden partition on your drive, with restore information.

If you don't have 1 or 2, you should have 3, but you should contact
your vendor to find out.

Personally, I find both 2 and 3 unacceptable (especially 3; a hard
drive crash can leave you with nothing), and would never choose to buy
a computer that came with an operating system unless I got a complete
generic installation CD for that operating system.

 

[Gerry]

Ken

Don't you think it worth a mention that restoring a computer can be an
involved process, especially if the original system is pre SP2? Apart
from downloading and installing all the XP updates you need to replace
third party drivers which have been updated . You need to reinstall all
programmes so you need to make sure first you have all the programme
disks? Further you need to have details of all favourites and know how
to customise to the way you want the computer to be!

You're normally meticulous with this type of caution!

--
Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Ken

Don't you think it worth a mention that restoring a computer can be an
involved process, especially if the original system is pre SP2? Apart
from downloading and installing all the XP updates you need to replace
third party drivers which have been updated . You need to reinstall all
programmes so you need to make sure first you have all the programme
disks? Further you need to have details of all favourites and know how
to customise to the way you want the computer to be!

Yes, and thanks for adding the warnings.

 

[Guest]

Okay,

First off, I appreciate all of the support and help; it was alot more than I
expected, and thats one thing I like about these forums.

Now, I own a Dell Inspiron 1000, and when I bought it it already had Windows
XP SP 2 installed on it. I have three disks that came with my computer that
belong to Dell. 2 of them are application disks, for reinstalling Sonic
MyDVD 5.3 LE and RecordNow 7.1 LE Software, and for reinstalling CyberLink
Power DVD Software. One is a Drivers and Utilities disk for reinstalling my
Dell Wireless Card.

I dont know if these are all I need, and most importantly I dont know what
to start on first. Im just a high school upperclassmen.

Thanks for the help,

 

[Gerry]

Will

http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1000/en/index.htm#printed_documentation
Page 64 seems to be the relevant documentation.

Personally, however, I would probably not be inclined to take this route
unless the system was not working. Given that the system is working I
would clean up up the system and tackle the cause of any error / warning
reports in the system and application logs in Event Viewer.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Guest]

Yes restoring XP from scratch can take lots of time so I agree if possible
clean up your working system.

If you have XP professional once you have a working system its worthwhile
doing a full system backup so you can use Automated System Recovery.

This is a good system but has several limitations when trying to create the
backup files.ie no DVD support, Tries to back up all data on plugin USB hard
drives as well, partitions hard drives to original size if trying to fit
bigger hard drive.

To use it you need one of the following 1. space one of your hard drives,
2. Zip drive or
similar
3. Shared folder on
another PC over a network .

PS I've just done my system after a full reload but it took 12GB. I did
included music & photo files though. Used the second hard drive to make the
backup file and then coppied it to my plugin USB hard drive.