How To Wipe HP Harddrive With No Original Disks?
Jun 15, 2005
I want to wipe the harddrive of my HP Pavilion desktop and start from scratch. However, I have moved since I purchased it many years ago and I don't have any of the original disks.Is there any way to access a function in the harddrive to wipe what's there and just re-install what it came with at purchase? And will it be able to connect to the internet to get drivers, etc.? Sorry if this is a question that has been asked before... I am semi-literate when it comes to computers but I have never done a complete reinstall without the original disks that came with the system.
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Feb 9, 2008
compaq computer has bit the dust and I'm building her a new one. Her original 20GB harddrive won't boot up in the new system....it gets to where the XP colored window flashes, goes to a blue screen of death screen, but that blinks out so quickly that I can't read it or pause it, and the computer reboots itself. It won't boot into safemode either. thought the harddrive was dead since I could hear it click at that point
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Jul 27, 2007
my desk top is using xp and i cant access it i have tried all sorts of things boot disks, recovery disks but still no joy, tell me to format then i can start again,
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Aug 29, 2006
I know what to do but i am bit curious on the formatting bit. I have 2 hard drives, Harddrive "A" has all the window/program files as well as other programs like games and documents. Harddrive B is where i keep all my big files like videos and movies of course i want to format harddrive A but the thing is that harddrive is split in to 3 drives (C:, G:, F. I dont mind formating the c drive since it is all windows/program files but i dont really want to get rid of the G/F drive. I kno you can format the harddrive through the installation process of windows but i was wondering if it is possilbe to just to format the C: during that process or does it only format the whole harddrive
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Jul 30, 2007
I reformatted my hard drive due to OS issues, I was running a trial version of Server 2003 along with XP Pro, and I had to get rid of Server 2003 because it was conflicting with XP Pro, and so the only way to do that was by reformatting both hard drives including XP Pro because Server 2003 was acting as the dominant OS, so I backed up all my ****, and reinstalled XP Pro, but now I get this hard drive problem that it says only 51 Gigs are remaining on a 250GB Hard drive, when the only thing installed on that hard drive is XP pro and maybe 15 applications, I tried using every program I can think of to find hidden files that equal a huge size but nothing shows up
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May 26, 2008
My computer operated windows XP sp2, and have 3 hard drives conntected
1. HD 0 is 160 GB divided into 2 partiotions, one 20 GB containing the system the other 140 Gb containes data directories and film directories2. HD 1 is 120 Gb connected through mobile rack and also contains data directories and film directories3. HD 2 is 200 Gb connected through mobile rack and contains only film directories.Untill thursday night everything was perfect, but when i I opened my computer friday morning i found the following1. HD 0 second partition all film directories completly disappeared and the free space is 40 Gb instead of the original 50 Gb
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Oct 1, 2009
I got a trojan that attached to my browser. I managed to get rid of it by system restore.A few days later I noticed I only had 127 GB of my 300GB harddrive showing.I did manage to find the missing space though Disk Management. It was showing 170GB as unallocated space. I named it E: and formatted it.It now shows in My Computer as New Volume E: When I open E:I get 2 folders, Recycler and System volume Information. SVI will not open. It gives me an error, ESystem Volume Information is not accessable, access is denied.I am trying to find a way to either resize E: to 1GB or smaller and move that 169 GB back to C: or get rid of E: altogether and put all the missing space back on C:
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May 23, 2005
about two yrs ago my dad made a massive mistake of making two partitions on my laptop, and giving the C: only 2gigs of the partition, and the D: 28-29gigs. I wanted to format my computer completely anyways, and would like to know how i can format my computer and merge these two partitions. I have the formatting disks, but it never goes to a screen asking me about my partitions, it just formats everything on my C: (my default drive), but keeps everything on my D: intact (games, files, etc.).
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Feb 19, 2005
Recently upgraded my laptop to windows XP from ME. I first replaced my 5 gig hard drive with a 20 gig hard drive. I added another 128 memory module for a total of 256. For an old machine it really hums now. Three minor problems are bugging me though. 1. I lost the sounds from my modem. The modem works fine except for no sound. I assume that the sound is from the unimodem half-duplex audio device that is located on the Lucent winmodem. I have checked everything. The system says that it is working correctly. I cannot even find the driver for this on microsoft . I thought if I could load a new driver it might work. No such thing. 2. System restore didn't work until I erased all the memory points and reloaded the program. Now if I open siystem restore and click on "settings" or "help" System restore shuts down. I assume it is corrupted and would like to reload it.
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Sep 10, 2005
Home computer got too many virsuses to fix. Need to reformat hard drvie but our computer came preloaded with windows xp and no disks. Last time this happened had to spend $ at Best buy where we boutgh it for them to fix. They said the operating system is hidden somewhere i the system. Is there a way to extract this before I wipe out the drive? I can only start up in safe mode.
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Jun 6, 2006
I want to wipe XP and install win 98...The computer is going to be connected to my network and simply used for MP3 storage and back-up as well as I am going to connect my scanner to it. When I go to CMD promt and type Format C: it tells me that everything will be erased, yes all well and good. I enter yes and then it tells me that another process is using the hard drive and cannot format. It tells me that I can disconnect the handle or something like that and I again enter yes. It then tells me that It can't disconnect. What the hell? It doesn't even work from Dos? When I tried to run a XP home edition from Boot, it getts hung up on Kernel debugging DLL...Then I have to restart. Anyone have answers. I just want to wipe the drive, format in fat 32 and install win 98.I am going to take the video card, audio card, HD and CD-ROM and throw it all onto a motherboard I have from my old computer: Celeron 1.1GHZ processor, 256 SD PC-133 RAM.
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Sep 25, 2009
DBAN will wipe drives, but won't allow me to leave teh recovery partition.I want to keep the FAT32 recovery partition intact.
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Jun 11, 2009
I'm currently in an architectural design class and it's getting to the time where my teacher likes to get a clean start on the next year computer-wise. Now he always just uninstalls select things and then reinstalls the better versions the next year. Now I was thinking, since these computers are a few years old, he should just format them entirely, speeding them up greatly and clearing out any old problems. And this is where the problem comes in, he wants to save past student's files and I can't think of a way to do this after doing a wipe leaving out the option of backing them up on a seperate drive.
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Dec 14, 2005
I just installed Windows XP Professional over Windows 2000 Professional but I would like to completely wipe my hard drive and just have Windows XP installed. Does anyone know of a program I can use to totally erase my hard drive and start overwith a clean drive? I used to use a FAT32 format but this computer uses NTFS.
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Oct 11, 2010
how do i wipe my pc so i can start fresh i have windows xp
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Aug 10, 2005
I am currently running xp home and i am having major problems...i want to start all over and reinstall from scratch. When I get to setup it tells me that setup cannot continue because the version currently on my computer is newer than what I want to install (which is odd, it's the same program as far as I can tell!!) I want to do it anyway but when I try to boot from the cd...it doesnt seem to work.
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Oct 14, 2006
reinstalling win 2000 on a laptop. In the past when I have needed to wipe an installation, I have just pulled the drive and put it into another of my machines to clean the hard drive to start all over and proceed that way. That being said, I have never done one with a laptop. I have a laptop that an aunt asked me to wipe. She does not remember the login password.
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Jul 20, 2005
it came with 2000 and want to load XP. I loaded xp and it now has both on hard drive. it is a dell besides. If I reformat the hard drive, it will wipe out the drivers. I tried all I can think of to rid this computer of 2000, but it won't let me. I am considering reformatting and load only xp but not sure about drivers for a dell lap top. Are they the same as for a desktop?
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Mar 22, 2010
I have PC which has Windows XP media Center 2005 edition, which I have a key for but I need to wipe it and reload it. However I don't have a disk for this but I do have one for XP home edition one, would this key be compatible?
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Feb 4, 2007
Anyone who remembers my posts knows that I have been having all kinds of problems with my Win XP Home for at least three months now. Most of it has been my fault, as I don't do my research and get advice from experts like this forum before I barge ahead and pretend like I know more than I do. I'm on a Sony VAIO, almost 5 years old. It has 80 GBs and 700+ RAM and another 512 chip waiting to be installed (I want to fix these other issues first). I don't have any kind of original XP CD, which has caused many problems, because my computer came loaded with the OS. I just have restore disks which take me back to 2002. I have decided to wipe my hard drive and install my Dad's XP Pro, which is also 2002. At least I'd have the installation disk. He has permission to use it on multiple computers. I plan to get all of the updates for it from Microsoft once it is installed - is that a problem? I will not upgrade IE6 to IE7.
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Feb 20, 2006
I need some one to take me step by step "SLOWLY" and tell me how I can wipe my Hard Drive completely Clean, as if it was right out of the box.I am not all that bright when it comes to computers.But come on.How tough can it be, if you are taken through it one step at a time? Please don't use computer Lingo while holding my hand through this. Just tell me as simply as you can, how a computer browser type of person can do this task all by themselves.there has to be some one out there that wants to share the secret?I have a few buddies who do it all the time, and when I ask them how to do it.they just say, that it is to difficult to explain as if it is a Big Dark Secret.I would Love to be able to do it myself.can some body tell me the easiest way to do it?
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Dec 28, 2008
Just was given a Dell Dimension L1100R with xp pro installed and a ton of the previous owners files and programs. It came with no installation CD so I am unable to reinstall. Is there any way to wipe all the personal files and programs without deleting XP and the drivers? I already have a dell dimension 8250 with an xp home disc but it won't install over pro.
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Aug 14, 2005
as some of you may or may not know.. i have had some ( ok ok alot ) of problems with my computer since the hydro kept flickering on and off a few weeks ago.. well my saga continues.. I decided to say screw it and reformat. well it wont reformat properly it wont totally wipe the c drive.. it will delete and or reformat the d drive partition.. but when i come back c drive still has all the program files etc.. i have tried to do it through system restore and type in reformat c: /fsintfs and that wont wipe it either.
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Sep 19, 2009
i need to wipe my hard drive clean. I don't what anything left on it after the format. I want to sell it without operating system on it. I've tried to do this with the XP cd but it just installs a fresh copy of windows back on.
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Jan 11, 2006
I like to do a clean install of XP on the family computer.Its an older p3 933mhz 512meg system and its been running slow even after i did all the usual virus, spyware, reg, defrag scans.A lot of people have said I should do a fresh install of XP and it will help alot.The question is, how do I go about doing this?Do I need to format my Hard Disk first?How do I do that?I have a XP pro disk so I really just need to know how to wipe the Hard Disk clean before I install it.
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Aug 10, 2007
I have an HP dv1000 laptop that came with XP Home and am looking for ideas on how I can get the drivers out of it before I wipe it and install XP Pro.I haven't done one of these in a while and at least I know for sure that the drivers for laptops must be similar or the same as the original. The system may work with generic drivers, but is there an easier way than to update the drivers one by one?
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May 12, 2010
My laptop is an hp pavillion dv4000 version 2002(w/SP3), and I got it almost 3-4 years ago. It has, as expected, gotten slow over the years. But now, it's EXTREMELY slow. As in, it takes like 10 minutes to start up. It takes several minutes for my internet browser to pop up. Doing more than one thing at once is impossible. And I constantly have "Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low" popping up...from doing even the simplest tasks on it.
I really like this laptop and don't want to purchase a new one. I want to completely wipe off everything from the laptop and then reinstall windows XP so that I can start afresh. Problem is, I don't have the CD, my laptop never came with it. The manual says it already came with the recovery feature pre-installed.
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Aug 2, 2005
what is procedure and commands to wipe all data from harddrive? the currently installed os is windows 2000. its so badly infected with trojans( thanks kids!) that i am going to start anew and put better access limits on it.(take that guys). already have downloaded all data i want to keep and will be scanning it( before installing) with avast and other goodies i've downloaded.
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May 12, 2006
I had a friend "set up" my computer for me when I first got it. I recently downloaded the windows updates and now everytime I turn my computer on, a notice comes up saying that I might be running "non-genuine" software. Maybe this is true maybe it isn't. I don't know. I really want to fix this problem, but I don't know where to begin.
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Dec 1, 2008
My brother recently bought a new HP desktop PC so he wants to sell his old laptop (Compaq Presario 700, Windows XP Home Edition) and we both agreed we should do a full restore to completely wipe the hard drive clean to it's original slate and we have the original Compaq ''QuickRestore'' discs and for whatever reason, they're not working. There is three CD's and not a single scratch or mark on any of them. I've tried to run all three on the laptop and the only thing that happens is that the folder containing the discs files on it is what pops up and no actual setup occurs like it says on the little piece of paper that comes with the CD's.
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Sep 21, 2008
I was running XP professional but got hacked or a virus and did a complete hard drive wipe out and then installed XP home. Now it does not find, or is having a conflict with, my ethernet controller, audio device, system management bus and VGA. I can probably download updated drivers for the other things if I can get it to load a driver for the ethernet, but since I can't, I am pretty well screwed. I would appreciate any help from anyone who is at all familiar with the Dell Dimension 2400.
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