Wipe HD Clean And Install Linux
Mar 3, 2009
I want to sell an old Dell Latitude laptop, running Windows 2000 Pro. I want to make sure all my personal information is wiped clean from the laptop before I sell it. I bought it at a used computer store and they did not include the installation disks. I went there today and they are not willing to install an OS on it unless I pay $50. So, what are the steps to format my drive clean as a whistle, and then install a basic free OS (using my computer computer to download)?
The store told me I can put Ibunto Linux on it. But if I wipe the disk clean first, maybe it won't recognize my CD-ROM (I have had trouble before with that drive and had to download a driver for my DVD player, etc).
Please tell me if you need more information. A CD holds 700 mb and the download I was looking at is 699 megs. I am guessing a DVD won't work in this situation?
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Jul 19, 2009
I can't update Vista 64 bit, went through everything with MS support, nothing worked. Module Installer keeps stopping. Will have to reinstall OS. I have 8GB of memory. Any tips and or advice before I have to wipe my C drive clean? I have 3 hard drives on my computer so the C drive is programs and I'll export my outlook mail stuff and bookmarks, anything else I should consider? Will the Vista 64 just pick up on the 8 GB or do I have to do something for it to find all the RAM?
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Jul 12, 2009
It's turning summer now and your PC proficiency may be affected by it. Here are a couple of Cool Down tips to help keep your PC cool:
1. Clean the vents out. Wipe off all the dust on the PC vents to increase air circulation. Thus, giving the PC more breathing room.
2. Open up the box and give the inside a good clean out. Take all the hardware out, (if you can) and give the inside a good compressed air cleaning. Get out all the dust and whatever else might be in their. Be careful re-installing the hardware and components.
3. Take your time when reasembling. This is a very crucial step!
When assembling take the time to re-organize your wiring to improve air flow. Tuck away unsused PSupply cables. Use some elctrical tape or plastic ties to pick up loose and dangling cables. If your using IDE 40/80 pin cables try to fold them neatly. (There are pre-folded IDE cables for sale) Do this and your system will look better and further more will stay cooler by improving air flow!
4. Check your fans, make sure that they all work properly! Including the one inside the Power Supply. (If this fan is not working is time to get a new power supply unit, DO NOT attemp to replace this fan!!!! Nor open the Power Supply!!! This may very well result in DEATH!!! As you know high voltage residual charges is left in the units even when unplugged!!! .............
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Oct 2, 2009
Version 10 and it still has all the same glitches, endless code and incompatabilities it had since the beginning. Wireless support totally sucks, audio support is a jolk, and usually you have to settle with haveing one of the two work depending on which distro you install. I tried Linux for a third time when I saw the new version 10 and it still sucks. I now have XP back on my Eee PC and everything works as it should with no code hhaving to be written, or config to suffer from The age old question: what can windows do that Linux can't? Aside from everything in general the main answer is WORK!
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May 26, 2009
Im Useing Windows vista and i was wanting to know if i can install Linux with Windows? i heard u can Install Two Operating systems on your computer. but will it work with Linux though?
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May 22, 2008
My HP system was built with Vista in mind and has been working flawlessly for a year and a half. It runs better than XP and takes one awful beating from me and my system is on all the time with sleep engaged, waking up to perform tasks on it's own very reliably. I really do not know what people are bitching about! Just lucky I guess.
My question has to do with Virtual PC, I have tried 2004 and 2007 and have the same problem with both. In trying to install Ubuntu Linux there just not seem to be a way to get the display resolution correct. In VPC during the install VPC reports that the guest OS has selected a resolution too wide for the screen. I have tried all three resolution options in the VPC setup without sucess. XP installs in VPC perfectly. Linux and XP install perfectly in Virtual Box. Virtual Box has some issues with virtual disk size that I have been unable to resolve or I would just use Virtual Box from Sun systems. and Virtual Box runs much more quickly than VPC.
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Jan 30, 2007
I'm assuming a clean install with an upgrade license will be identical to a clean install with a 'full' copy, except that at some point during the process, it will ask for my key for Windows XP? I just want to confirm this is the case before I go buy an upgrade copy. one last question to tack on here - if I have a desktop and a laptop computer will it let me install the same copy and license key of Vista on both? I know some MS products in the past have allowed you to install on more than one computer because they realize a lot of people have more than one computer but they only work with one at a given time.
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Apr 28, 2009
You had better not be using Linux because they don't support Linux. "Most Linux users are serious computer users. We?re geeks, and geeks use a lot of internet. Wouldn?t it be wise of AT&T to just acknowledge us?" Linux users are an oddball bunch of less than 1 percent of the desktop populous.
"This is not the first time I?ve run into problems with AT&T pretending that the world consists entirely of Windows and Macintosh. Once I was helping someone else get a Linux system going with AT&T DSL, and they flat-out refused to give her the manual setup instructions for the connection if she couldn?t use the automated Windows or Mac installer. The tech told her? If you run Linux you should be able to figure it all out on your own. I won?t help you, and I won?t transfer you to anyone else.".............
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Feb 27, 2008
i will be upgrading my Dell desktop from XP Pro to Vista Ultimate in the coming days and i need some opinions. I've never upgraded OS's before but i do understand the difference between a clean install and an in-place install. My question: what would you do and why would you chose one over the other?
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May 9, 2008
I purchased a new PC and would now like to give my old PC. It had been upgraded from XP to Vista. I did a clean install with Vista and deleted the windows.old folder which was taking up space but the computer isn't as fast as it would be if I had formatted the drive before the install.
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Mar 23, 2008
Clean install & SP1. If I do a clean install of Vista home premium will SP1 be the only Vista update that is downloaded and installed? I am wondering if all of the old updates are still hanging around somewhere that is listed in the installed history. Are there old files that could be removed after SP1 installation?
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Mar 23, 2008
I apologize if this issue has been dealt with already but I can???t seem to find a solution. I have built a pc with AMDx2 4200, 2gb 800mhz ram, ECS AMD690GM-M2 board, sata 80gb hdisk, and pioneer dual layer drive. I have no add on cards and the motherboard is on failsafe settings. I have installed vista home premium 32 bit and the installation proceeds normally, and after the dialog boxes where the PC name is requested and the background, the system reboots and then does not boot beyond ?loading vista 2.1.2 ? starting ACPI ?. I have re-installed vista and the same problem occurs. I am not able
to access a safe mode.
I wonder if there is a simple solution to this I am not aware of.
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May 8, 2008
I picked up the Vista Ultimate DVD at the "Heroes" seminar. I'm trying to intstall it on my test machine. The machine has no DVD drive. I tried copying the DVD contents to a secondary partition, but I can't find any .exe files that will run from a dos boot. Is there any way to get Vista install started without a bootable DVD drive? I do have a CD drive on the machine...can I split the DVD into CD's? Anticipating the most likely input...let me say these...
Yes, I have googled my ass off. Yes, I have IDE DVD drives, I have external usb DVD drives. What I DO NOT HAVE is a way to get THIS machine to BOOT from any of them. Buying a new DVD drive won't help me. I can boot from a CD or floppy or hard drive. I want to do a CLEAN build without leftovers from previous OS. Yes, you can order Vista on CD if you want to wait...and they won't even tell you what it costs until you enter personal information...sorry, but that really chaps my...
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Mar 26, 2008
it seem to find a solution. I have built a pc with AMDx2 4200, 2gb 800mhz ram, ECS AMD690GM-M2 board, sata 80gb hdisk, and pioneer dual layer drive. I have no add on cards and the motherboard is on failsafe settings. I have installed vista home premium 32 bit and the installation proceeds normally, and after the dialog boxes where the PC name is requested and the background, the system reboots and then does not boot beyond ???loading vista 2.1.2? starting ACPI?. I have re-installed vista and the same problem occurs. I am not able to access a safe mode. I wonder if there is a simple solution to this I am not aware of.
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Jun 17, 2008
Everything I've read said that doing a clean install would delete all of my files during the process which is what I needed. I wanted everything off of my computer except what came on it. I called myself doing it correctly but when I checked, none of my files were gone and my Recovery D drive has no space left which is why I needed to do a clean install in the first place.
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Mar 30, 2008
I have tried other hardisks, and all combinations of RAM in all slots, but Vista still locks up after a seemingly random period of time. The lock ups occur with a fresh install (with no other software installed), and sp1 has no effect. The starnge thing is XP (both x64 and x32) work perfectly fine. Where would I be able to get support for this bug (I have Vista x64 Ultimate OEM).
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Mar 26, 2008
I have XP Home on my computer, and it works great. Should i do a clean install for best results? The only problem would be reinstalling many programs. I am unsure about the back-up and reinstalling method, and getting the programs to work as they did in XP.
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Feb 5, 2008
I have uninstalled Vista, and I just have XP and Ubuntu. When I did a clean install on my semi-new franken computer, I was hitting 100% cpu usage, in both x64 and x 86, at idle. I disabled indexing, all services I could, and to no avail. I had Vista x86 running fine on another mobo with the same proc. and less RAM. But now on my seemingly FASTER computer, Vista is SLOWER than ever
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Mar 26, 2008
Clean install & SP1. If I do a clean install of Vista home premium will SP1 be the only Vista update that is downloaded and installed? I am wondering if all of the old updates are still hanging around somewhere that is listed in the installed history. Are there old files that could be removed after SP1 installation?
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Mar 23, 2008
Can you do a clean install of vista and install SP1 right away or do you have to get some updates from WU prior to installing SP1?
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Sep 29, 2008
what is a windows clean install? and how Do i obtain this? I think I know what this is but not sure exactly, maybe more of how do I achieve this state of "clean install"!
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Jan 31, 2009
Gateway tells me I need to do a Vista X64 clean re-install to possibly solve a severely underperforming CPU (I say its a dead Core).
My system has two SATA HD's with 640Gb. My partition is:
Drive C: 87 free/283Gb Windows on this drive
Drive D: 6/15Gb free Recovery files
Drive J: 255Gb free of 300Gb
I have a GATEWAY install DVD disk. Gateway Recovery does not go back far enough to solve dilemma.
My question is will the Clean install of Vista erase data on all drives or only C (& D) where Vista is stored?
Can I save data on J Drive, install and retrieve data from J?
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Mar 26, 2008
I building an Intel Q6600 PC from scratch running x64 Home Premium. Upon getting it up and running to the point of the OS install I would like to ask about some basics and hear anything else offered.
- I'll be using 8GB RAM (4x2GB Cards) Corsair DDR2 800 PC6400 RAM. Should I start with 4GB and add the rest later. I hear I may need a MS patch?
- I want a clean optimum install. I remember using the NTFS option in XPSP2. Any options like this I need to know about in Vx64?
- Administrator options. I will be the only user of this machine. I want everything I do to be ran as administrator. I'll add a guest account if it's ever needed. What say you?
- I hear some DVD optical drives (Lite-On LH-20A1L-06 SATA) have issues in Vista. Will I need the MS kb929777 patch?
- Photoshop CS3 is supposed to run really well in x64 but is a 32bit program. This will most likely be the first thing I install. I hear some have to command prompt to SysWOW64 and do a regsvr32 jscript.dll and a regsvr32 vbscript.dll?
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Nov 5, 2009
Currently I am running Windows Vista.
I find that I am able to boot up the Windows 7 Upgrade DVD (from Vista). Can I perform a Clean Install from the DVD ? This is because I learn that a lot of fellows have problems in upgrading from Vista.Besides, if we can perform a clean install from the Upgrade DVD, what will be the difference between an Upgrade DVD and a Standard one ?
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Mar 26, 2008
My ageing Thinkpad with XP Pro died so I've decided to build a new custom desktop from scratch. Can I install Vista Ultimate upgrade directly without having to install XP first? I would like to have a clean install of Vista, not an upgrade. Also since XP Pro license was activated on the Thinkpad, do I need to call MS and get another activation key??
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Aug 11, 2008
I build a computer last night for a relative and could not get a clean install on the system, always got BSOD. I tried XP Pro (error), Vista Ultimate x86 and even Vista Ultimate x64 but always had some issue. I did remove all external USB/Firewire/Sound/TV Tuner card etc so it was only running on Mainboard/1 Ram Stick/HDD/ DVD Burner and Video card. Still get an BSOD so i changed the RAM for one out of my wifes computer but it didnt make a difference. Hate to think my sister inlaw got a faulty product as she has gone back home out west with reciept and had to leave the computer with me to resolve the issue. Any ideas what maybe causing this as i had a late night on it and i am to damn tired to think of what else apart from a fauly pasrt it could be.
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Mar 26, 2008
I decided to do a clean install of Vista Home Premium, on a computer that hasn't had any problems running it. I reformatted the drive, did the install, and after several repeated attempts doing it, I did it one final time, and let it sit for 8 hours, hoping time would clear it up, it didn't. It boots as far as the screen that has the green progress bar on the bottom, then the screen goes blank, as if it suddenly stopped sending data to the monitor. Rebooting using safe mode yields an error that it cannot finish installing in safe mode. Graphics are via ATI x1900, but I'm also plugged into the onboard graphics, neither gives me anything. An attempt to install XP on it worked fine, so the hardware should all be fine. Is Vista running something in the background that takes endless hours, or is something seriously messed up here?
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Mar 29, 2009
I was running Vista x86 and built a new cp which gave me this ability to run x64. I downloaded Vista 64x from a site, after hearing I can use my x86 Vista key with x64. I installed the x64 version and didnt register right away, thinking id have no problem since I did in fact have a valid Vista Ultimate key. Well low and behold, ive come to the point where I have to register. I use the key and get the error basically saying the key wont work because it is for an Upgrade only, not clean install. I dont believe it's possible to simply Upgrade and installation from x86 to x64.
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Sep 26, 2009
every time i try and install vista ultimate x64 it freezes almost right after it loads all the files (when it gets to the screen with the typical blue vista background). i've tried pulling out one memory dimm at a time (i read in a thread that was one guys problem) but still nothing happened (i did this many times to test all the dimms), i've tried plugging my hd and cd drive in different sata ports, and still no dice. i'm at a real loss as to what my problem is, and how to fix it
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Mar 23, 2008
I am at the point where my XP Pro install is probably due a good blowing away and re-installing. I am aware that just upgrading XP Pro to Vista will be very time consuming (took well over 3 hours when I went from my original XP pro to the first release about a year ago and lots of stuff was messed up and I ended up reformatting and starting again with a clean install). This is my conceptual plan:
* This time I want to back up my settings with the "file & settings transfer
wizard" on the XP box to one of my server shares.
* Back up all my important document stuff to the server.
* Then I will format everything on my PC and clean install Vista Ultimate.
* Finally restore my settings back from the server using the Vista FSTW
Presumably the Vista FSTW equivalent can read the XP versions files, or
should I expect troubles trying to do this?
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Mar 31, 2010
I got a Lenovo 3000 PC from friend who was tossing it ( wouldn't boot). Had no CDs for me, but I took it. I can mount drive in another system and the disk itself looks ok - but Vista is toast. I had already ordered win7 UPGRADE for another PC but now thinking - this will be my new box.So, I called Lenovo - ordered the original Vista home premium CD/DVD set and it will be here in a few days. I asked if it needs an oem partition to do a reinstall and was told 'no - these DVD's can be used in a brand new drive and will install fine.' I'd like to get the most from Win7 and it seems like to do that I need to upgrade from Vista and not XP. If I can I'd like to multiboot with XP too, so , could someone familiar with Lenovo as well as Vista/Win7 structure critique this plan:Partition drive - 4 partitions ? ( 1=XP, 2=Win7, 3=DATA and 4= Lenovo diag/utility partition)I install XP , then Lenovo Vista, then upgrade Vista to Win7Or will installing Lenovo disks wipe XP and leave disk with 2 partitions - one for me and one for diags ?
If I can have XP and Win7, any difference if I install all updates to Vista prior to win7 upgrade or will win7 end up the same either way if I wait until vista is installed , then go right to win7 then " windowsupdate" ?
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