Reformatting my PC.

[RyDogg66]

I have an old Dell laptop that I bought for Law School in fall 2003. It still works relatively well for what I need it for - which is strictly internet use at home, watching YouTube, other television shows online, etc. I have some documents (Word) that I would need to take off, as well as a bunch of downloaded music from iTunes, but other than that the PC is loaded with garbage that I dont need. I know how to get off the Word Docs and iTunes and other music. But from there, how do I go about reformatting the computer.

 

Maybe I am using the wrong lingo, but what I want to accomplish is to reset the computer to when I got it in 2003. The reason being is that it runs SO SLOW now, it takes forever just to open Firefox and I cant watch videos on it all because the picture just freezes (the audio is generally fine).

 

Would reformatting accomplish what I am looking to do?

 

Thanks

[blatzlight]

if you reformat it, you will wipe everything off of it. you do that be reinstalling windows onto the laptop.

[whizkid]

Just reformatting will give you an empty harddrive http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif. What kind of recovery did Dell provide? Do you have a disk to reload presumably XP? It depends on what Dell provided whether you can get to where it was when you bought it. Otherwise, a reformat and clean install will do what you want but you'll have to reinstall all your applications.

[RyDogg66]

Oh. That sounds hard/complicated. I know I have a bunch of disks provided to me by Dell. One says XP on it, there is some other garbage as well. I have never done anything like this so perhaps I shouldnt mess with something I have no clue about. What would some other place charge me to do a complete wipe and reinstall?

 

I just cant afford a new computer right now.

[whizkid]

Hey, I'm just one of those old people who can't handle technology but I just added some memory and formatted my 8 year old Dell 4100 and installed XP on it to replace ME and it's like a new machine. It's not that hard and there are step by step instructions on the internet I can point you to. Is there any doc with the Dell disks? Or perhaps under help and support from the start menu? Another question is do you have installation media or files for all the applications and drivers you will need to reinstall? It can be a little time consuming.

 

I followed these instructions. They're for a desktop and a retail version of XP but should work for a laptop. I don't think you'll have to reactivate XP since it's a reinstall of a preactivated OS.

 

The only thing you have to fear is fear itself. If it's useless now you have nothing to lose, right? You can always take it somewhere after trying, but I doubt you won't be able to do it.

[greeg35]

I have a Dell desktop from about the same era. The XP should be on one blue disk. If you put the disk in and start the computer, it will walk you through. I've done it/had to to it a couple of times.

[whizkid]

If you go to this link, and click on technical support there should be info on reinstalling specific to your laptop. Enter your service tag(click on the link on how to find the service tag). If you click on drivers and downloads from that link and enter your service tag you should be able to find any driver updates from what are on the driver disk you should have. If your XP disk doesn't include SP2, that's the first thing I'd do via windows update after the XP install and before reinstalling any applications.

[1992casey]

Your XP disk should give you the opportunity to install Windows without a reformat or to fully wipe out the hard drive before installing.

 

I really prefer including the reformatting. Just make sure you have everything you need handy. That includes backing up your bookmarks from your web browsers. (Normally, you just export them to an HTML file and reimport them later.)

 

If your computer is still usable and uninfected, you can also go in and download new drivers, the latest Firefox, the latest versions of your malware protection and firewall, etc. You might also want to download Windows XP Service Pack 3 ahead of time. All this stuff can be burned to CD. Scan any burned CDs for malware--just in case.

 

After reformatting, I'd install Windows XP Service Pack 3, your malware protection, and Firefox before letting your computer touch the internet. A caveat might be that your malware software might want to update. If that's the case, let it access the 'net to do that. Updates will be minimal, however, if you download the latest software before reformatting.

 

After getting the malware stuff up and running, do any updates Windows wants to do. At that point, you can install the rest of your applications and copy over your documents.

 

You might be installing your apps over the next few days or weeks. That's fine. Install them as you need them.

[endaround]

Yep it really isn't that hard. Things to keep in mind is that it will reinstall all the crap that the OEM puts with new computers (AOL free for 30 days!) and you'll need to set aside a decent amount of time for updates (4-6 hours) and to put on firewall/spyware stuff.

[whizkid]

If he uses a provided recovery, e.g. a hidden recovery partition, to return it to how he got it, it will reinstall the AOL stuff etc. But a clean install from an XP reinstall disk shouldn't, at least my Dell ME reinstall disk didn't.