Reverting back to factory settings

[Guest]

After 4 months of no problems at all why would my computer suddenly revert
back to it's factory settings, It came with a trial McAfee which I had to
recently upgrade,
The macafee full product remained,this did not revert back to the trial
version.
I have a Dell dimension 5000, windows XP.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Who else had access to your computer?

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| Hi
| I did'nt use systems restore I just turned the computer on one day and it
| was back to it's factory settings, i.e all my extra programs that I installed
| where gone, exept for McAfee which is why I think it could have something to
| do with it. Any thought anyone.
| --
| Shimo

 

[Guest]

please tell me how to go back to factory settings with windows XP.I cant do
system restore at all and USB devices not recognizing any
devices..printer,camera etc.this happend when I put a BT wirless adapter in
my pc

 

[Rock]

please tell me how to go back to factory settings with windows XP.I cant
do
system restore at all and USB devices not recognizing any
devices..printer,camera etc.this happend when I put a BT wirless adapter
in
my pc

It depends on your system. If the OS came preinstalled then check the
documentation or contact the computer's tech support. The manufacturer has
to provide you with some means to restore the system. They have three
options:

1. XP Installation CD with a drivers CD. Most large OEMs don't do this
these days.
2. Recovery CD
3. Hidden partition on the hard drive with an image of the drive as
received from the factory. Sometimes this is in conjunction with a recovery
CD.

It might be a bit premature to do a system recovery. Normally that will be
destructive, loosing data and programs, so you have to start over,
installing the OS, reinstalling apps, and restoring data from a backup. You
do always have a full and complete backup, right?

Have you uninstalled that adaptor and driver?

Here are some links with info on troubleshooting USB issues.

General USB troubleshooting in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310575

Troubleshooting for USB Drives
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble_e.html

Also why is system restore not working? It can be a helpful tool. See the
troubleshooting tips on MVP Bert Kinney's System Restore page:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/srfail.html