harddrive reformat?

[adam warlock]

want to try it without using tech help on the phone this time.
any suggestions of a good instruction sites? going to start fixing it in about 6 days right after the semester is over and want to get EQ to work again.

ever since I've got my tech to remove the nasty virus, it no longer does:

* appearance of the blue screen scandisk when I do the cold restart
* change the desktop display
* multitasking

it now does:
* freezes at the sight of flash, heavy javascript, .php, and applet programs

how can I tell? the thin broken 'interruption' line across the browser or program.
I believe there's a lot of faulty and missing files. so I'm going to start afresh again. *sighs* [img]graemlins/1disgust.gif[/img]

and don't want to pay for the phone tech help [img]graemlins/nono.gif[/img]

edit: here's another example, I freeze when I log into this forum as well. right up to the point it's loading the Live Chat icon

[ 12-04-2002, 08:56 PM: Message edited by: adam warlock ]

[Redblueflare]

Adam Warlock I really hope there is another way to fix your cpu. My dad reformated because of a virus and it wasn't even completely necessary. Reinstalling windows isn't so bad. But getting all those drivers back was a pain. Not to mention reinstalling all the programs.

[Arvon]

You could start by looking in the help file for your OS. It's been a long time since I tried this. But I seem to remember something like format c:\s. The 's' will load a basic system. Also you should have a startup disk available. It should contain your bacis equipment, drives, and the like. If you have Norton you should have a rescue disk(s). Helps get you up again.

[andrewas]

If I read this rightm you only have problems on the internet? Your browser got trashed by the virus, no big problem to fix. With a decent internet connection simply download the relevant installer and get the latest version.

With a slower connection, magazine coverdiscs usualy have a copy of netscape or IE on them.

[Vaskez]

A reformat is always a good idea because so much crap accumulates on your HD you wouldn't believe. Anyway the following assumes you have a CD with your OS on it.

What you need to do is create another partition on your HD. Then use the windows backup util: start->accessories->system utils->backup.
Backup everything you can fit INCLUDING the system state ( this backs up your registry). If you back up the folders where your applications are and the registry you can then do a restore and not have to reinstall them.

There are plenty of sites that tell you how to create new partitions - but using Partition Magic is the easiest...if u don't have that, use fdisk for older windows versions.

Once you have backed everthing up, you can do format c: /Q /NTFS or /FAT32 at a command prompt (put whatever your drive letter is in the place of c. If you type format/? then it will tell you what the parameters mean.
It that asks you if you really want to format.
If you press yes, the current partition (c: in my example) will be quickly wiped. The other partition is not effected and your data on it is safe.

If you don't have space for a backup partition, then backup onto CD-Rs.

After this, just reinstall windows, start backup again and do a restore for system state (this restores registry among other things) and all your data.

It is a simple process but if you need more help search on the web for windows backup.
Ok I have to be honest, I've reformatted and reinstalled different versions of windows many times but I haven't tried windows backup because I chose to reinstall all my applications. What I said should work in theory as that's what it's designed to do: enable you to recover your system state.