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reformatting computer harddrives
Posts: 1988
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Karma: 41
I know I already posted in Media and Arts...
Anyone here done a clean sweep reformat on there computer hard drive before? my laptop is running really shitty latly so Im gonna buy a external hard drive, move all my inporttant files, and reformat my harddrive. Is it hard to do? or does win xp pretty much do everything for you except all your drivers? any help would be mucho apprecieated.
Any aside from my doucuments and mp3's, is there any files I sould move onto the external hdd?
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S.M.I.T.H
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Karma: 87
yeah its pretty easy but you can easily ruin yout computer
God is an American.
Posts: 1988
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Karma: 41
Thats not helpin bro.
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S.M.I.T.H
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Karma: 87
so are you setting your computer up to run on your new external drive or are you only using that temporary to move system and important files there so you dont ruin them in the reformat?
God is an American.
Posts: 2894
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Karma: 40
Easiest way is to back up all the files, such as video and music and that kind of stuff to your external hard drive and then use the restore cd on your regular hard drive. It will get rid of all the shit but you will still have all the stuff you want to keep.
Posts: 7116
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Karma: 339
it's loads easier than it used to be a number of years ago. It's fairly simple and windows xp takes care of itself for the most part. Although, make sure you have back ups of your Drivers and know what drivers you have for each thing (such as modem,graphics card,sound).
If you have a factory cd that re-installs all the drivers and factory settings, you'll have no worries.
So make sure you remember settings and know the drivers. If you do not have backups, then by knowing them you can download the specific ones from the internet
Eat. Sleep. Breathe. Ski.
Posts: 1988
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Karma: 41
yea, what I would like to do is to move all my mp3's and videos and doctuments to an external hdd, then reinstall windows on my internal harddrive. Ive been reading up on it and it seems that its not to tuff, just insert my xp cd and run the XP repair install funtion. Im just gettin fed up with my computer being slower then shit, (its a dell insperon 5150 with a 3.06 pent, 512 ram, 40 gig harddrive, and 128 meg graphics, yet its slower then shit latly) so I just want to start over for the most part. Ill Im looking to keep is the 2000+ mp3's and my documents. other then that everything else is reinstallable. I just dont want something to happpen and have a 1800 dolla paperweight on my hands.
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S.M.I.T.H
Posts: 1988
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Karma: 41
Yea, i do have a dell cd that has
''Drivers, Utilitys, and Applications.
Already Installed on Your Computer.
For Reinstalling Dell Insprion 5150 System Software.''
So im pretty much set for modem, graphics, and sound drivers right? Just save the files I want to keep, get all my network and dial up settings, and reinstall right?
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S.M.I.T.H
Posts: 2894
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Karma: 40
ya thats pretty much all you do. when i had to restore my comp last i didnt have the luxury of an external hd, but i just copied all my music and stuff onto blank cds and restored it and then i just put all the data abck on. its fairly simple, the most tiem consumign part is prob just copying onto the external hd.
Posts: 4255
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Karma: 11
get a hold of a boot disk, format off of that. type a:
a:\format c:
warning all shit will be lost blah blah blah....(y/n)
yes
then when that is done
fdisk
del primary dos partition
then create a new partition
enter volume label, youll want to use most available disk space for it
a:\restart
then insert the xp disk,(before the comp posts) and it will boot off of that, and after that it is quite self explanitory as xp gives you simple directions
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everybody that will be old enough to vote needs to realize that we need to get our dictator bush out of office, he is an ignorant fuck, and cant string together a sentence to save his life. he cant se that there are ways around war, and he needs to be gone
If people dont like what ive created, fuck em, because somebody else does-TANNER
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make sure you take the startup/boot disk out before you restart too
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everybody that will be old enough to vote needs to realize that we need to get our dictator bush out of office, he is an ignorant fuck, and cant string together a sentence to save his life. he cant se that there are ways around war, and he needs to be gone
If people dont like what ive created, fuck em, because somebody else does-TANNER
Posts: 1988
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Karma: 41
this sounds pretty easy, any other tips help a bunch too. Luckly, we have a couple of computers out here at hood, so i can still get on and figure shit out.
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S.M.I.T.H
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Posts: 3909
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make sure the machine will look for the CD-rom while it is starting up, otherwise it won't even know if you have the XP disc or whatever in there.
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Its a lot easier than hucksterjibber informed you of.
When your computer boots, hit F2 or F12 oe DEL or whatever it say to enter the BIOS. Then in the BIOS change the Boot Order to CDROM, then whatever you want. Then insert your XP CD, restart, press any key to boot off CD. Then XP setup starts. Select the option to Install Windows, DO NOT REPAIR, that onyl replaces any missing files. Then Delete whatever partitions there may be, create a new partition, then begin installing. When prompted, select 'Format Using NTFS File System.' Then let it do its thing. Enter info when it tells you to and you'll be set.
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bios could be f5 or f8 too. Just make sure that you change your cmos back to where it was, depending on what you want your computer to recognize first.
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everybody that will be old enough to vote needs to realize that we need to get our dictator bush out of office, he is an ignorant fuck, and cant string together a sentence to save his life. he cant se that there are ways around war, and he needs to be gone
If people dont like what ive created, fuck em, because somebody else does-TANNER
Posts: 4255
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Karma: 11
i remember back in the days of 95 and 98, where it was more diffucult. now xp pretty much does every damn thing for you, making it quite simple
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everybody that will be old enough to vote needs to realize that we need to get our dictator bush out of office, he is an ignorant fuck, and cant string together a sentence to save his life. he cant se that there are ways around war, and he needs to be gone
If people dont like what ive created, fuck em, because somebody else does-TANNER
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