How to reformat a computer???

[FelixJaeger]

can someone give me a step by step guide of how to reformat my computer and reinstall plug and play devices because i have forgotten?

Cheers,
J.W.K

[Granamere]

Um What OS? If 2000 or XP just install the cd rom and boot form it. If 95 of 98 you need to have a boot disk (AKA Startup disk). What plug and play devices are you talking about? Also is this a desktop or laptop?


Granamere

[Bungleau]

What do you mean?

You can simply reinstall the OS (which can correct anything that's incorrect). You can also format the hard drive and do a full reinstall, which will wipe out everything.

In either case, you need the OS installation media (CD-ROM). Depending on the age of your machine, you may be able to boot from that, or you may need a current startup disk, which will allow you to boot from a floppy and access the CD-ROM.

Note that if you want to create a startup disk, you may need the OS media available to create it properly.

[Harkoliar]

just make sure you save everything important.. i didnt once.. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[FelixJaeger]

I'm going to wipe the whole Hard Drive as I have a virus that shutsdown my computer after a few minutes which is an "essential" part of my system so I need it deleted.[Edit:]By essential I mean I cannot manually delete it with out deleteing everything off of my Hard Drive...stupid viruses.

I'm going to do the Boot disk one I just need the step by step advice.

And by plug and play I mean printer, scanner etc etc...because I didnt format my comp last time.

[ 08-15-2003, 09:11 AM: Message edited by: FelixJaeger ]

[Mouse]

If you know it's a virus, and have identified which virus it is, then I would imagine you could download (or get someone to do this for you) some sort of removal tool.

This might be worth trying before you go for a full format/reinstall.

[Vaskez]

LOL you can't reformat a computer, you can only reformat a storage device such as a hard disk, floppy disk, memory stick.

ALso, the whole point in plug and play devices is that they don't need configuring by the end user. That's why they are called plug and play. YOu plug them in, windows says "aha new hardware, shall I install it?" you say "yes" and tell it where the driver is if it can't find it itself and that's all you need to do.

[philip]

this is the way i did it for WinME:

-make backups (if possible) from everything you want to keep
-check if you have the WinME install CD (and the code)

-create a start-up disk
-reboot your computer and press the button to go to setup (for me its del but it could be different. this will take you to a screen with 3 options (IIRC), safe mode windows, dos with CD and dos without cd
-insert windows cd
-choose dos with cd (dos without works as well, but i'm not sure what the difference is and with cd was the way it was recommended to me). this will start dos
-a virtual cd station is made. check which station letter it has (eg D:, E. you can find your windows cd there, which you'll need later.
-type "format c:" (if C: is the drive you want to format, otherwise change it) -> enter
-once done, go to the cd and start windows installation from the cd (setup or install, not sure which)
-follow instructions from the cd and everything will be installed.

could someone confirm this if not confirmed -> use at your own risk>? I formatted so many times, and in a few different ways, so i might have forgotten a small step above (and it are the small steps that can really mess things up)

edit: spelling

[ 08-15-2003, 11:05 AM: Message edited by: philip ]

[andrewas]

Originally posted by FelixJaeger: I'm going to wipe the whole Hard Drive as I have a virus that shutsdown my computer after a few minutes which is an "essential" part of my system so I need it deleted.[Edit:]By essential I mean I cannot manually delete it with out deleteing everything off of my Hard Drive...stupid viruses. I'm going to do the Boot disk one I just need the step by step advice. And by plug and play I mean printer, scanner etc etc...because I didnt format my comp last time.

If I was to hazard a guess, you have the blaster virus and when you try to delete it, it says its in use by a system process or something like that. If so, bring up task maanger and close MSblast.exe, then delete it. Although you really should run this:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com...oval.tool.html

But thats just a wild guess based upon the shutdown message, it could be another virus altogether.

[LennonCook]

Originally posted by Vaskez: LOL you can't reformat a computer, you can only reformat a storage device such as a hard disk, floppy disk, memory stick.

But "format the computer" is often used as a synonym for "format the disk which is recognised as C:", so much so that most people know what it means.