Alright, so I have decided to reformat my hard drive. I'm not sure if my current process is correct, different people have told me different ways to reformat and I've gotten a little confused. I've tried it to reformat two different ways. The first way I just insert my original Windows XP Professional CD in while my laptop is on, it brings up this menu:
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After I click on the first option it gives me this message:
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And I'm stuck from there.
The other way that I have tried is a way that I read up on the internet, by booting Windows from the XP CD and then clearing partitions etc, but when I do this, it brings me to a dark blue screen and I think it is the pre-booting screen, but always at the same point of this process I get the Blue screen with the error message saying that Windows has undergone and error and has shutdown to protect itself or something. So there it doesn't work either.
I've gotten everything ready for after I reformat (drivers, SP2, etc), but if anyone has some essential things that I have have ready and they could post it, it would be much appreciated.
Thanks for the sites. On the first site you linked I get up to step 3, then it brings me to another screen and then it gives me an error screen before I can get to the screen showed in step 4, that is the main problem that I have been coming across.
Hi spo0k1e,
I can see the problem (I think!)
It looks as though you may be trying to reformat and reinstall Windows whilst your machine is on and running Windows.
To do a format ,You need to do this from "outside" Windows ie from boot, before Windows loads.(Please note the format deletes all your data and all your stuff, good or bad! from your hard drive, so make sure your backup/copy archive is 100% up to date, accurate and reproducible….as we discussed in your other posts)
This is the 30 second version of what you need to do…then you can follow the links in the threads that tallin posted to you. (I strongly recommend that you print out and keep handy the full sets of instructions on this and the links that tallin provided for you…….this is no time to economise on printing ink!
1 Place the Windows installation disc in your machine.
2 When you get the menu up, select EXIT (keep the Windows installation disc in your machine)
3 That screen will disappear and you need now to close down your machine in the normal way, and wait for 30 seconds with a black, blank screen.
4 Now power on your machine (start it) and you may get a message saying "press any key to boot from CD" if you get to that message then press the space bar, and then you are away and can follow the instructions that hopefully you printed out!
Note sometimes you won't get a message about booting from CD and the machine will just boot into Windows in the usual way….this is not what you want, so you will need to start all over again and immediately the machine fires up, start pressing the delete key or F2, Esc, or whatever key it is that you machine needs to get into the BIOS (often called "Setup") The actual key you need to hit will (usually) be shown on the initial screens so you may need to do a few dummy runs to identify it…….Don't forget you can always use the "Pause" key to freeze the screen if you need more time to read them before they disappear! Hitting the space bar will let the screens progress continue once you have seen what you want.
Once into the BIOS (set up) you need to find the "Boot sequence or Boot priority" and set it so that your machine boots first from CD (optical Drive, Second from Hard drive and only lastly from Floppy (if you have one, and not at all from Network or at least make this the last in the boot order) If you cant easily find the boot sequence/ priority settings have a look in "advanced options"
Now save your settings (important) and exit the BIOS (setup) (you will normally see a follow on menu at the foot and or top of the screens for these. (once your format and reinstall is all done you can Undo these changes in boot sequence and make the hard drive the number 1 again.)
Your machine will now boot up, so its time to follow the instructions above in 1 through 4 and for me to wish you the best of luck.
Some additional points for your consideration.
5 Never connect to the Internet (not even for one second) without having a firewall up and running.
6 From what you have said it seems that your Windows XP Installation disc probably does not include Service pack 2, so make sure you have got this safely on a CD so you can update your system to this (SP2) as the first thing you do after the reinstall, I always like to have SP2 slipstreamed into the Installation disc………but this may not be necessary for you (although a desirable thing to have for the future!)
7 After any of these steps carry out a reboot (important)
8 Have your Motherboard chip drivers safely on CD together with your Graphics and audio drivers (if separate from Chipset)
9 Install the above drivers in that order, (I.E. Mobo first then Graphics then Audio) you can leave your printer drivers, scanners etc and the like till a bit later!
10 Have your Antivirus and software bi directional (2 way) firewall all on CD so you can install them from disc.
11 Get them both up and running but don't connect to the Internet to update them yet
12 Now go to Windows update and do the 80 or 100 updates necessary since SP2, you will need to reboot several times (watch for screen directions)
13 Never ever close down, shut off, or stop your machine whilst it is installing Windows updates………..unless you like formatting and reinstalling that is!
14 Once all that has been done and you have rebooted as required and all is working well, you can start plugging in your settings for your email, import your "favourites" and your address book but don't test it all just yet.
15 Now check for updates to your 2 way software firewall and updates for your anti virus, when this is done check to see that your
2 way software firewall has disabled the inbuilt Windows firewall (you don't want them, as a rule, both running at the same time)
16 Now you can start to load your applications, one by one with a reboot in between each one.
17 When you have got a pretty good system running , your printers and peripherals installed and just as you like it, its time to do a disc clean up, and your normal routine basic management. don't forget a defrag as well.
18 As your machine is now in tip top condition, and as fast as its ever likely to be, free of viruses and junk….(undesirable elements as we say) its a good idea to take a disc image using Acronis, Ghost, Drive Image, Paragon or similar disc imaging software.
If you have to do it all over again and you have a good disc image, it will take you about half an hour or so…………. rather than all day!
Regards
paws
BUT - I would ask, why are you trying to reformat and reinstall in the first place? Please understand that reformatting and reinstalling should ALWAYS be the last resort effort to cure an ailing machine - ESPECIALLY with laptops, which are inherently proprietary!
Note that when you reformat/reinstall, you lose all your data, favorites/bookmarks, email, installed programs - including your security applications, Windows and program customizations, user accounts, hardware drivers (and again, with laptops, these are usually proprietary), and most importantly, you end up months or even YEARS behind in critical security updates and patches. And to top it off, you don't learn what the original problem was or how to fix it if it returns - and that assumes the format/reinstall does fix the problem and if hardware related, it may not!
If you are still bent on doing this, against all the advice I can muster, then I urge you to first, go out to you computer maker's website and download ALL the latest drivers for your computer hardware, and burn them to CD/DVD so you have them on hand. Also, go out to your anti-virus site and download that, as well as your firewall and anti-spyware. If your original Windows disk does not include SP2, go out to Microsoft and download the SP2 download program and be sure to install that first thing after installing Windows, then your security applications - all this before even thinking of reconnecting to the Internet as you will be wide open exposed to badguys. And of course, you need all your CD-Keys/registration codes to activate Windows and any purchased programs.
If someone has advised you to reformat and you have not exhausted ALL troubleshooting options, you have received very bad advice!!! Do not follow it.
8 Have your Motherboard chip drivers safely on CD together with your Graphics and audio drivers (if separate from Chipset)
9 Install the above drivers in that order, (I.E. Mobo first then Graphics then Audio) you can leave your printer drivers, scanners etc and the like till a bit later!
I have all the drivers on my computer (I used the program you suggested in my previous thread) backed up to an external hard drive, after I have installed Windows I then install all the drivers (in the order you said), or would I have to install some drivers while Windows is being installed or something? This might be a confusing question; let me phrase it another way: so I re-install Windows, after that it would be like a normal start-up right? (as in it would bring me to the "Log On" page and then I log on) and then after that I start to install the drivers? Or is there another process I have to go through?
Hm, and I have done what you said about booting from the XP CD (although I have not changed the boot order sequence), it just automatically read the CD and gave me the options of booting from CD, and a few other options, I would choose the CD option but it didn't work, I will try again though after changing the boot order and let you know what happens.
Hi, No you install the drivers after you have installed Windows.
The only drivers you MAY need to install during the actual Windows installation are the SATA hard drive, drivers (on a floppy disc!) if your machine has a SATA hard drive, if your machine has an IDE rather than SATA you don't need anything at all!
Please give consideration to Digerati's valuable comments before proceding, and if you have the manufacturer's Restore and Recovery discs, this could save you a lot of time!
Regards
paws
BUT - I would ask, why are you trying to reformat and reinstall in the first place? Please understand that reformatting and reinstalling should ALWAYS be the last resort effort to cure an ailing machine - ESPECIALLY with laptops, which are inherently proprietary!
Note that when you reformat/reinstall, you lose all your data, favorites/bookmarks, email, installed programs - including your security applications, Windows and program customizations, user accounts, hardware drivers (and again, with laptops, these are usually proprietary), and most importantly, you end up months or even YEARS behind in critical security updates and patches. And to top it off, you don't learn what the original problem was or how to fix it if it returns - and that assumes the format/reinstall does fix the problem and if hardware related, it may not!
If you are still bent on doing this, against all the advice I can muster, then I urge you to first, go out to you computer maker's website and download ALL the latest drivers for your computer hardware, and burn them to CD/DVD so you have them on hand. Also, go out to your anti-virus site and download that, as well as your firewall and anti-spyware. If your original Windows disk does not include SP2, go out to Microsoft and download the SP2 download program and be sure to install that first thing after installing Windows, then your security applications - all this before even thinking of reconnecting to the Internet as you will be wide open exposed to badguys. And of course, you need all your CD-Keys/registration codes to activate Windows and any purchased programs.
If someone has advised you to reformat and you have not exhausted ALL troubleshooting options, you have received very bad advice!!! Do not follow it.
This is my last resort, I do not know what to do with this laptop anymore. I've run AVG, Lavasoft and several Spyware cleaners, CCleaner and a few Registry cleaners, ATF and all other programs that I could think of, they found NOTHING, *NOTHING*, at all. It's not just that my computer is SUPER slow, the sound isn't working (well the sound WORKS, but it keeps getting distorted and slows down, it's not my laptop speakers because I have used external speakers as well), if you have any pointers that might help me to fixing my laptop without reformatting they are more than welcome.
I've also gone to pcpitstop and run that, taken the appropriate measures but still it's tremendously slow.
I have backed up ALL my files, drivers, I have AVG and XP SP2 on hand for after I reistall and everything that I could think of and things that Paws mentioned.
I am a bit worried about reformatting my computer, that it will go bust or I will do something wrong, but still I need this laptop running like it used to, it's only a year or two old too.
I guess I'll hold off on reformatting until after you reply now =P
If you are sure you have hit your system with a complete arsenal of anti-malware tools, good - as this sounds like a malware issue. That said, you might want to look over my canned text on Cleaning Out Malware. Use it if you don't already have a complete security suite and disk cleaning utilities to rid your system of malware and clutter. You can also use it as a guide to build or beef up your own security suite, and to help you develop a "Practicing Safe Computing" self-discipline.
Speakers, even self-powered speakers do not have anything to do with the speed of the sound being produced. They can affect loudness and distortion, and introduce noise, but still not affect the speed or rhythm of the sound. That would most likely the sound hardware or driver issue. Did you look in Device Manager for any yellow or red error indicators?
When did this problem start? Was it sudden or did it gradually get worse and worse?
How much free disk space do you have?
Besides running some scans, what have you done to correct this?
What is the make and model?
I have backed up ALL my files, drivers, I have AVG and XP SP2 on hand… …and things that Paws mentioned.
I am a bit worried about reformatting my computer
Great! Wise precautions. And being worried a little bit just means you are thinking about what might happen - that's healthy and wise again. When prepared, the chances for a trouble-free format and reinstall improve greatly (but never to 100%).
Thanks for your help, I'm going through the link you posted now and doing what it says.
When did this problem start? Was it sudden or did it gradually get worse and worse?
How much free disk space do you have?
Besides running some scans, what have you done to correct this?
What is the make and model?[
This started a while ago, probably a month or two. The sound problem was sudden, one night I was listening to music and it just started doing it. And I have updated all my drivers but this problem is still happening.
I haven't done anything else to correct it except for what different scans and pcpitstop have told me, I wasn't quite sure how else I could figure this out.
I have an Acer Aspire 5550 (if that was what you meant by "make and model")
I do not have much free disk space, I have two hard drives (C: and D:), C: has 16 GB of free space and D: has 5 GB of free space; drive D: is basically just for my music and games' files.
Edit: This might help finding what is wrong, in *Mozilla*, I keep getting an error which reads "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage"
Thanks, I'll post my HJT Log in the appropriate section and see if anything comes up.
I've also installed a number of security programs and I would like to know if they would interfere with eachother:
Zone Alarm - Free version.
Spybot-SD Resident
AVG Free Addition
AVG Rootkit Cleaner
No, they will not interfere with each other in my opinion. I have had them all running manually on my computer for many months/years. Zone Alarm of course runs at startup.
I can recommend them all.
kind regards,
No, they will not interfere with each other in my opinion. I have had them all running manually on my computer for many months/years. Zone Alarm of course runs at startup.
I can recommend them all.
kind regards,