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Fixing my computer...
burntheladle
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I need some serious advice on computer maintainence. I've been badly neglecting it (save for the reasonably frequent anti-virius/spyware scans), and I'm now seriously regretting it.
I'm using a HP laptop, running Vista. It's seriously slowed down in the last few months, and in the last week or so is acting up badly - when I log in, 3/4 of the time it gets stuck on a black screen and won't go any further, so I have to reboot, load into safe mode, restart, and try again. This afternoon, it decided it didn't even want to load into safe mode, although it did when I restarted it (using the power button). It takes a loooong time to log in when it does log in successfully (3-4 minutes ish), although it seems to run okay once it's in. It is running a fair bit hotter though.
I haven't defragmented in at least 6 months... My dad used to take care of all this stuff for me but I'm not living with him anymore, and I feel quite out of my depth.
What I think I probably need to do is reformat, and reinstall windows.
The only problem is that I've lost the restore cds I burnt when I bought the computer. We recently bought my mother the exact same laptop from the same vendor, and I have access to her restore discs (I burnt them for her) - can I restore using those discs? Or, if I burn new det of restore discs off my computer, will it restore to new, or will it restore the clusterfuck that is my computer right now?
Also, I have office 07 as a download from microsoft. How do I keep that, if I do a reformat? I can download it again, but what about the liscence I paid for?
I'm going to back up all my data onto my external hdd, so I'm perfectly happy to wupe everything, as long as I can be sure I'll be able to get it all working again.
Also, if I reformat, will I be able to set up a partition so that I can have a c:/ that only has essential system files, and another drive that has everything else? I wanted to do that originally, but the entire drive was already allocated to c:/ and I couldn't work out how to do it.
Thanks heaps if you can help me with any of this - I'm quite lost at the moment...
I'm using a HP laptop, running Vista. It's seriously slowed down in the last few months, and in the last week or so is acting up badly - when I log in, 3/4 of the time it gets stuck on a black screen and won't go any further, so I have to reboot, load into safe mode, restart, and try again. This afternoon, it decided it didn't even want to load into safe mode, although it did when I restarted it (using the power button). It takes a loooong time to log in when it does log in successfully (3-4 minutes ish), although it seems to run okay once it's in. It is running a fair bit hotter though.
I haven't defragmented in at least 6 months... My dad used to take care of all this stuff for me but I'm not living with him anymore, and I feel quite out of my depth.
What I think I probably need to do is reformat, and reinstall windows.
The only problem is that I've lost the restore cds I burnt when I bought the computer. We recently bought my mother the exact same laptop from the same vendor, and I have access to her restore discs (I burnt them for her) - can I restore using those discs? Or, if I burn new det of restore discs off my computer, will it restore to new, or will it restore the clusterfuck that is my computer right now?
Also, I have office 07 as a download from microsoft. How do I keep that, if I do a reformat? I can download it again, but what about the liscence I paid for?
I'm going to back up all my data onto my external hdd, so I'm perfectly happy to wupe everything, as long as I can be sure I'll be able to get it all working again.
Also, if I reformat, will I be able to set up a partition so that I can have a c:/ that only has essential system files, and another drive that has everything else? I wanted to do that originally, but the entire drive was already allocated to c:/ and I couldn't work out how to do it.
Thanks heaps if you can help me with any of this - I'm quite lost at the moment...
What would Zombie Pirate LeChuck Do?
burntheladle on
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it will restore your computer to however her computer was when they made her cds
as far as the liscence goes, call microsoft. they should be able to pull your PN from either registration or from the actual software (the latter would require preformat)
i wouldn't back up all data just vids in mpeg and avi and music in mp3, .docs, and .jpg just because those are the only files i trust to be entirely safe. well pretty much any IEEE format should be fine
as far as the dual partitions i would actually reccommend this unless you have a small HDD, i have mine set up with 40gb for windows and that's enough for vista then the rest of 320 for data and anytime i need to format i just clear out windows partitions. when you format you can actually make or delete partitions, just partition off the 40gb and install to that (make sure you format the rest again or windows won't recognize it anymore)
The hdd is pretty big - 250gig... how much should I leave for windows? And how do I reformat? Does reformatting mean I don't need to defragment it?
leave about 40gb for windows just to be on the safe side. I've used up 30 on mine already and reformatting again just sucks.
to format boot from the cd (hold f10 at boot<boot from cd/dvd rom) and it should bring up your formatting options. it will display your current partitions (which should just be the 1 now) delete that partition and it will turn into unpartitioned space. partition out 40gb for windows then 210 for the the rest C:/ and
and no you don't have to defrag after a format. defragging essentially crunches all of the files on it down to the lowest amount of space possible, since you are deleting the files anyways it is unnecessary