problem with formatting my C drive

[Relyt]

CoolMeEddY,

And welcome to AntiOnline! We couldn't have joked around better with front2back than you did! The AO Forums are cram packed with tons of great information to help solve all your needs. So search the forums and as always www.google.com is a great resource as well

cheers

[Raion]

First and foremost, welcome you to AO

Can you borrow an XP CD from a friend (Never bought XP don't know if you can only install it once or what)? Or, you can probably take it to one of those computer shops and tell them you want to format your HD but you have no WinXP cd you'll have to pay them (obviously otherwise it isn't a buissness it's a favor).

[Tedob1]

like it warns you when you start format.exe. you are about to loose all data on your hard drive. press (Y) to continue.

there not fooling around!

so why dont you have retore disks?

have you tried rolling it back (restore) to an earlier time?

[vvirtho]

CoolMeEddY -
If I were you, I would definitely get hold of whomever put your PC together and ask them for your Windows XP or at the minimum - a restore CD for your system. Since you live 200 miles away - tell them to mail it! This should have been included with your system . . . something to remember in the future.

Do you have backups for the programs on your system right now? If not, do as Spyder32 suggested and burn backups. Once that is done, try deleting everything off your system except Windows XP and its updates. From there, I'd suggest backing up your registry, then running a good registry cleaner (Easy Cleaner by Toni Arts is good, plus it's free). It gives you the option of recovering anything you delete - but you must set up your preferences first. After cleaning your registry, try using a hard drive cleaner. Here are a few free programs that may do the trick for you:

Mutilate file wiper/free space
Http://home.att.net/~craigchr/mutilate.html

Shred
www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,273,00.asp

Eraser
www.tolvanen.com/eraser/

Absolute shield internet eraser
www.internet-track-eraser.com

If after doing all of the above, if XP seems to be running with less lag (it should), reinstall the programs you deleted, one at a time. Be sure to remove any programs from your Startup folder that you don't need to run all the time. Note any "lags" in system performance after each install and if you find a notable difference, you may want to check out the last program installed and possibly find a replacement for it.

Just my 2 cents worth, but hopefully it will help.

V.

P.S. My first system was running Windows 95 and I didn't have the OS disk nor a restore. I learned a lot with that computer and have a good idea of what you're going through. Good Luck!

[Nokia]

You can always try Kazaa for a copy of Windows XP!

http://www.smartdownloads.net/download-75.html

Just do a search for windows XP you may need a key generator too if the CD key aint included with the download!

Burn it to a cd , format in DOS mode , make a bootable floppy as has been said, stick the floppy and your new copy of windows in, boot from your floppy and Voilla!!

You will prob need the floppy as it is easier than making the cd bootable.

[CoolMeEddY]

First of all I would like to thank all for helping me out with this issue! What I did was what vvirtho told me to do, to cantact the guys who put the pc alltogether, I called them up, told my problem and they said they gonna prepare a cd for me, I'm going down there in like a week or so, I can wait that long.

It does suck though that u need the cd to reinstall the whole operation system after formatting instead of putting it into your system to stay foreva. Anyways, I'm not too big on these things so I'll just wait a little.


Thanks a bunch!

[The Texan]

another website to checkout is driverguide.com, it might have some useful info.... but to format you just use Fdisk...

[Atticus|1]

The Texan,

another website to checkout is driverguide.com, it might have some useful info.... but to format you just use Fdisk...

For crying out loud...don`t jump in and confuse the guy.

He wants to reformat his drive...not add drivers or partition the drive at the moment.

[nihil]

Hi, CoolMeEddY

Get the CD, as you never know when you might need it, but before you go to the extreme of reformatting, can you give me a bit more information?

1. What processor and memory (RAM) do you have?
2. How big is your hard drive, and how much available space have you got?
3. What AVs are you running?
4. What firewalls are you running?
5. What scheduled tasks do you have?
6. What applications are running?
7. How many processes are running, and what are the CPU usage and commit charge values ?
8. What web browser(s) are you using?

Have you any expired trial software, if so, please uninstall it.
Have you applied the latest service packs?
Are your audio and video drivers up to date?

What are you doing when you notice these "lags"?

OK, reformatting will frequently resolve the problem, as it "goes away of its own accord" but problems that go away of their own frequently come back of their own. And the process teaches you nothing about the workings of your system


Good luck

[adiz]

OK, reformatting will frequently resolve the problem, as it "goes away of its own accord" but problems that go away of their own frequently come back of their own. And the process teaches you nothing about the workings of your system

I completely agree with "nihil" I have went through many formats and reformats. Sometimes I get so angry with a shitty PC and I just am like screw it and want to reformat. But as nihil pointed out, you don't learn anything about your system. For instance right now you have no idea what is causing the lagg....it could very well be a quick fix in the registry or a quick ram upgrade and you went through the long process of a reformat.

I would urge you to make sure you have looked at all the options.

My rents have XP home on their comp and they were complaining of a horrid lag. I removed all the spyware and virus' and it was still lagging I looked at the process' and realized that "svchost.exe - local service" was sucking up to 94% of the system resources. I googled got the answer and it is running perfect now (or as perfect as a machine can run).


- Adiz