reformating computer. help please? (Full Version)

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at_leo_87 -> reformating computer. help please? (Apr. 15 2009 14:42:02)

does anybody know how to reformat a laptop?
it's a compaq armada running windows me.

no matter how hard i kick it, it wont work properly so i need to reformat it.

i dont have ANY disks. nothing that came with the computer, no boot disk, no os disk, nothing.

how do i reformat and what do i need to do it?



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HolyEvil -> RE: reformating computer. help please? (Apr. 15 2009 15:45:23)

you need to get a windows installation disc (ME/XP/VISTA) which is usually bootable (because i think i has one copy of XP which was only capable of being installed over ME)

then boot your computer up and press F12 or DEL (usually)
to get to you CMOS setup, which tells your laptop what sort of HDD you have and etc.

then select the boot from sequence to CDROM as first.
It should be selected as HDD then CDROM atm,
so once you have changed it to CDROM then HDD
reboot your computer and with the disc in your drive, you should be able to install your windows once it has booted up.

hope this is clear enough.

cheers



at_leo_87 -> RE: reformating computer. help please? (Apr. 15 2009 16:00:22)

quote:

you need to get a windows installation disc (ME/XP/VISTA)


would something like this work?

here

i think im missing some drivers too. would a reformat fix this as well?



cathulu -> RE: reformating computer. help please? (Apr. 15 2009 17:41:06)

Holyevil is on the right track. Holyevil, what is up with that anyways LOL

OK, your laptop is real old if it has Windows Millenium edition. Windows ME was a crappy iteration on the way to XP anyways. So I would not spend any money on it. Your hard drive is probably only 20 or 40 gigs. You can buy a little netbook for cheap.

Now, what you can do is install linux Ubuntu on your computer. That is a low resource software that will work just fine with what you got. There is a healthy and active Ubuntu forum to help. I got it working on my wife's laptop.

Good luck.



HolyEvil -> RE: reformating computer. help please? (Apr. 16 2009 15:42:38)

hahah rare that i'm on the right track here.. I'm usually the one asking and reading and going 'ohhhhhhhh"

leo: i'm not sure whether that disc would work because I've never tried it, on the explaination part of the page it seems to work but I think you need an installation disc for windows or any OS because with just a boot disc, you can only boot up and do nothing else.
You can try and run some old styled DOS format checks but that's about it.

To really allow your computer to boot up on it's on and onto a proper OS you would need a installation disc

I can try to find if I can find an old ME disc.. but i'm not sure if it's bootable. what's the speed of your laptop? if you don't know, just give the average year..because ME is about 1999-2002 I think

cheers



minordjango -> RE: reformating computer. help please? (Apr. 16 2009 19:10:03)

good luck with it, its always a huge pain !!!!!!

dont forget in future if u can - keep a harddrive or portable drive with all the drivers and you reliable versions of say mp3 rippers, something like transcribe, totally FLAMENCO MASTER from ron, and etc - on a hard drive so you can easliy re-install



at_leo_87 -> RE: reformating computer. help please? (Apr. 16 2009 19:45:35)

quote:

good luck with it, its always a huge pain !!!!!!

dont forget in future if u can - keep a harddrive or portable drive with all the drivers and you reliable versions of say mp3 rippers, something like transcribe, totally FLAMENCO MASTER from ron, and etc - on a hard drive so you can easliy re-install


i have ALL my music and pictures, documents, etc on an external hard drive. hopefully, my external hard drive wont die. [8|]



at_leo_87 -> RE: reformating computer. help please? (Apr. 16 2009 19:49:56)

quote:

OK, your laptop is real old if it has Windows Millenium edition. Windows ME was a crappy iteration on the way to XP anyways. So I would not spend any money on it. Your hard drive is probably only 20 or 40 gigs. You can buy a little netbook for cheap.


the laptop basically has alzheimer. i just feel bad throwing it away. i might sell it for parts. i just want it to work enough so that i can use it to surf the net and listen to music, play games, etc. while my girlfriend steals my primary laptop to do homework. i've been looking for cheap notebooks on ebay but it seems i have to be willing to spend around $200 for something decent and isnt going to be another problem in the future.



at_leo_87 -> RE: reformating computer. help please? (Apr. 16 2009 19:55:54)

quote:

To really allow your computer to boot up on it's on and onto a proper OS you would need a installation disc

I can try to find if I can find an old ME disc.. but i'm not sure if it's bootable. what's the speed of your laptop? if you don't know, just give the average year..because ME is about 1999-2002 I think


what does a boot disk do? just turns on the computer? my computer turns fine. it's just infested with viruses. i installed an anti-virus program and that couldn't fic it. i had this laptop when i was a teen. so it's filled with viruses from napster and porn. [:o] lol

ok, so first, i get an installation disc. where can i get one? i'll get xp if i can find it on ebay. what happens if i download linux like cathulu suggested? can i put it on a flash drive and stick it in my old computer and let it boot from that? im slowly starting to understand the process. lol.



cathulu -> RE: reformating computer. help please? (Apr. 16 2009 21:41:49)

Dude my main computer motherboard just died after 6 years! So I am building a new one. I got two old hard drives and one new one and power cables etc running all over my desk. It is a disaster but slowly recovering from it. Gonna build it energy efficient and quiet. The giant CPU cooler has a fan but it runs so efficiently the fan rarely comes on! FYI Athlon XP 5050e 45 W max. This is gonna be my Windows XP machine.

What I also got - Mac Mini (not intel chip, the Motorola chip) - my back-up machine.

Compag presario running Ubuntu Linux. Was XP but the hard drive died and I didn't make a recover disk from the recovery partition when i had a chance. So I was hooped and Linux was the answer cause like you I did not have the operating system on a CD. This is used a lot!

Plus I have a little Eee PC netbook running another flavour of Linux that was my son's but he dropped it and broke the screen - it still works though the video out. Don't use it much.


So, if you want to learn a bit, download Ubuntu for free, and you can also get it to boot from a USB but then like HolyEvil said, you need to hit delete during the boot-up, and adjust your boot sequence to include the USB, if the BIOS allows you to do that. I recommend you download it to a CD and install it from there.

Your computer may be totally fried, so maybe it is more than a software problem. Try Ubuntu, it will at least load up and run and tell you if it works. You will likely need to twiddle with the setting to get the wireless card working. Everything else should work pretty decently. Good luck.



cathulu -> RE: reformating computer. help please? (Apr. 16 2009 21:48:07)

Sorry, forgot to read your computer was filled with viruses - so it does work. Another reason to go with Linux... basically viruses are not a problem.



at_leo_87 -> RE: reformating computer. help please? (Apr. 17 2009 13:54:02)

what's the difference between linux and ubuntu?

oh, and damn, that's a lot of computers!

linux sounds really appealing right now.



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