View Full Version : Need Help Reformatting XP?
LavisBlade
05-04-2004, 01:56 AM
Well today I reformatted my hard drive... basically because of the countless Mb's and Mb's of junk, slow downs, windows files are missing or corupted, the list goes on and on....
Well when this happens I reformat my hard drive... some dissagree, but me I just find it easier to uninstall the entire HD.
This being my first time reformatting the XP OS I searched the internet before I reformated, just incase somthing was changed back from the 9x days.
I figured I'd post this just incase anyone is new to Reformatting or is scared to reformat (All of my family is scared to mess with OS so they call me most of the time to wipe their drives. Mostly so they can sell their computer without all the info on their HD still). I've found a nice guide for this, so enjoy.
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sg_clean.asp
TuckerXE
05-04-2004, 03:47 AM
I pretty much follow your method, Lavis. A clean start feels like the best way to go. Thanks for the helpful info!
TeMpEsT
05-04-2004, 10:34 AM
My father is used to reformatting computers with old Mac and MS-DOS systems on them, man he was pissed when he had to reformat Windows NT on this one.
WolfmanNCSU
05-04-2004, 03:52 PM
Originally posted by TuckerXE
I pretty much follow your method, Lavis. A clean start feels like the best way to go.
Ditto on that!!
8 Ball
05-05-2004, 12:02 AM
I dont need help man Dell walked me through it once and I have did it like 2 times after that lol (I **** up my computer alot) so I dont need any help.
LavisBlade
05-05-2004, 07:09 PM
I really dont know how you could mess up your computer when your are tring the clear the entire HD. You cant technically HURT your computer since you killed everything anyway.
Unless you did something to the actual Hardware.
Even if you mess something up... like making 2 Os on one computer... even then you just reformat and it's all gone.
8 Ball
05-06-2004, 03:14 AM
I deleted a couple of dll files here and there.
WolfmanNCSU
05-06-2004, 03:38 PM
That will tend to screw it up.
TuckerXE
05-06-2004, 05:14 PM
Oh, yeah. Don't you hate hearing "Well, I didn't know what it did, so I deleted it." Well, I don't exactly know what my spleen does, but you don't see me taking it out, do you?
LavisBlade
05-07-2004, 05:18 AM
If I deleted every file that I didnt know in my system32 folder, I would'nt have a system32 folder.
Kenshin
05-07-2004, 02:59 PM
so has anything actually changed from the old windows 9x days? All i know is Dos is emulated on XP and 2000 so there isn't actually a Dos OS on the computer like win9x does that affect anything while reformatting?
LavisBlade
05-07-2004, 07:55 PM
Xp is very user friendly.
Insert CD, Follow Instructions, watch the loading bar... Only took me about an hour to reformat. (Probaly less)
You cannot leave your computer though because it will while loading popup windows asking for an option on stuff.
Like I think one of them was what do you want as a base lanuage, questions like that.
The use of Dos was probaly the biggest change and frankly following easy Yes/No steps in Dos was fine by me. You have to be careful with the partitions though because at this point it would be very easy to install XP twice rather then reformat. You must delete all partitions or if you have more then one HD delete only the partitions on each HD you want to wipe.
Didnt need Floppy Boot Disk either only the CD.
8 Ball
05-08-2004, 01:10 AM
I wasnt just going around in my system32 folder deleting shit. There was a virus deleting shit and I was in there trying to stop the damn thing!!! lol.
LavisBlade
05-08-2004, 06:59 AM
Man where the hell do some of you guys get these Viruses?
I talked to a guy yesterday on CS that had 243 different kinds of spyware on his computer... How is that even POSSIBLE.
Ok I could see having a Trojan or somthing like that, but god damn some of these things you guys get are horrible.
WolfmanNCSU
05-10-2004, 03:16 PM
Some people just dont track what they click on and what they allow in their systems.
Zzero
05-17-2004, 04:28 AM
Originally posted by LavisBlade
I talked to a guy yesterday on CS that had 243 different kinds of spyware on his computer... How is that even POSSIBLE.
243? Thats it? I shouldn't tell you how many spyware files my friend had on his computer then...
He had never run a spyware scan on his computer, and he had owned it for about four years. I told him to download and run Ad-Aware, and to tell me how many files of spyware it found. His response: Something along the lines of "23,197".
And no, I'm not kidding. I really, really wish I was though.
WolfmanNCSU
05-17-2004, 03:11 PM
Ouch, talk about resources down the drain.