Reformatting PC Without Driver Disks
Nov 20, 2009
This is a dell PC on Windows XP, I was going to just reformat it with my windows xp CD and the Serial key that's on the computer, but I'm worried that if I delete the partitions and then do a completely fresh install that I won't be able to find the chipset drivers and everything. I've never reformatted a production PC, only my own custom PC so I have all my driver installation disks but none for this one I'm trying to format. So if I reformat this computer, install windows xp, how can I get all the drivers for the hardware?
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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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Jul 30, 2005
Write CD-RW drive will burn data files to CD-R disks but not to CD-RW disks.
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Aug 12, 2002
For some reason they have not included these very usefull gems, the Setup Disks for Windows XP, for all those that cannot boot from a CD for some reason.XP uses 6 floppies and there is a version for XP Pro and one for Home Edition. You need the right set for your version. The makeboot and files forthe floppies are not on the XP CD.
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Oct 30, 2008
I have a sony vaio pcv-rx550 desktop that had a corrupt hard drive.It would not let me do a system recovery or system restore, so I wiped the hard drive with dariks boot and nuke,and ordered a new set of restore disks for my specific brand and model, but when i put the first disk in-it says ERROR: this recovery cd is not for your computer.I checked the dir. using a win98 setup disk and there is a sony folder and a image folder but I do not know the correct command to get them to load that way. any help would be appreciated.Can I use a regular win xp home disk to get it up and running and then use the disks to load the remaing software that came with it off of the restore disks?It had win xp home on it to begin with.
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Jun 4, 2006
my operating system is corrupt and i think my restore disks are bad too. how do i tell if they are and what can i do about it?
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Nov 26, 2009
I am having a problem understanding when I load windows xp pro.before I did it without no problems,what I mean by that is my hard drives.I have two of them both are 500gb.one I had for avid editing and the c drive for other stuff like software.I guess I just got lucky before.I had both of them 500gb.but what I need to know please remember I am not a genius
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Jun 29, 2005
Bought a new barebones PC and want to transfer my old hard disk with XP pro on it to the new machine.Back in the good old / bad old days of Win98 etc, it was easy to do this as Windows saw IDE as IDE and made no other requests to the system to fine tune, AFAIR.Now though if I transfer the drive I get a reboot, safe mode does the same.I can furnish more info from the boot log if required later but does anyone have a sure fire way of getting the GUI up and running so that it can start updating drivers etc.I'm also transferring the cdrom, dvdrw and most importantly the AGP graphics card so it's not an issue with that
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Mar 10, 2005
I have the setup disks for XP (all 6 of them) with utilities on the 6th disk that I use constantly in my work environment to troubleshoot/repair PC problems. How do I get all 6 floppies onto a CD and have it boot up?
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Mar 7, 2006
Ever since I reinstalled a few weeks ago, I'm still having problems.No doubt it's because I chose not to install all the Dell disks (since for crying out loud - who wants so much extraneous junque?Some of my problems:(1) Attachments I receive in webmail don't work. for example, someone sent me .doc attachments and when I tried either download or preview or saving to WordPad (as well as text-file) - nothing worked. All it displayed was either one line of gibberish or nothing at all.(2)Whereas prior to reinstall, my Nvidia Color-Correction tab used to display(complete with popout tab) so that I could dim my screen via Contrast/Brightness/etc., now it fails to display.This is affecting my health due to my photosensitivity!It's definitely related to my reinstallation. There's definitely stuff missing.My question is:Since the Dell Darlings failed to be so kind as to thoroughly label each CD, perhaps someone here can enlighten me re: how I should proceed in order to regain the above functions?
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Dec 10, 2007
I'm about to reformat my computer (XP Home)and since I haven't done this before I have a couple of questions about backing up certain things.Can I back up programs like for example Nero?.Programs that that I don't have installation disks for or do I just have to get them later?. I've backed up pretty well everything I want to keep like "My Documents","My Pictures" and things like that.Is there anything that I should absolutely not forget to back up other then the things I mentioned?.
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Sep 15, 2006
My computer died and I move the hd to a dell and it wont boot. I read that you should reinstall OS to solve. However here are my problems:
1. The computer came with XP Home installed but no disks only the key sticker on the outside of the computer housing. Manufacturer, V2 premier which I found out is just and OEM, would not give me any disks or help me in any way.
2. I think I may have installed an XP professional upgrade but not sure.
3. I have and XP professional CD (Not just and upgrade) I can boot off of but dont kown if the upgrade key will work with it or the key on the side of the computer.
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Jul 10, 2005
After I updated to sp2 and other updates via auto update and went to WMP 10, I noticed that the new DVD+RW's I bought the other day are not excepting a format or allowing me to erase them. Out of the box they are initially recognized by XP Pro, then when formating with nero they lock up during finalizing and I have to reboot. At this point the disk, after reboot is not recognized and seems to be in an endless loop or check mode state. I have, I think , 6 damaged so far. I am afraid to experiment and thought RW disks could be at least erased and reused but XP can't see the RW media and this does not let me use any other app to erase or reformat. Any ideas or registry fixes out there?
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Oct 22, 2006
I am looking to buy a laptop that I am told does not come with a restore disk. I would like to have a disk available so that if I want to reinstall windows at some later date, I can. I have Norton Ghost. If when I buy this computer, I use Norton Ghost to image the drive, will that provide me with a bootable restore disk so that if my whole windows install gets corrupted or virus-laden, I can restore it to the way I got it?
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Mar 15, 2005
Toshiba laptop that he bought used. We have been trying to remove all the previous owners settings, and I thought we had it, but now, the computer wont boot into XP at all. He got no disks with the computer, but I was wondering if there was a way to restore the computer to its original factory condition, without reformatting. I'm guessing that XP was preinstalled. I believe the problem occured when we tried to remove all references to the registered owner. We tried system restore, but that didnt help. I can boot it into safe mode, with administrator privledges.
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Jul 19, 2009
My main HD is about to give up. It's making strange noises whenever I start up or have a file on that drive open.Could I buy a new HD and install it as a slave drive. Then clone my main drive to the slave drive and then get rid of the old main drive and put the clone in as my new main drive? Without a lot of f***ing about?The reason I ask about doing it this way is that I don't have a set of XP disks, I just have the recovery disk that came with computers 8-10 years ago. It's pre sp1 and I've used it three or four times already and I'm sure it will be more hassle than I need to re install from it.I'm running XP sp2. When I had this comp put together they had to do a raid controller, I don't really know what that is. Something to do with the fact that the main drive is IDE only and my current second drive is IDE or Sata but is in place as an IDE drive.
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Aug 16, 2005
i just got this computer from a guy who had a fire dam. the computer just had smoke in it so i took it after we took all the stuff out of the guys house to throw away. he told me i could have it but he took out the hard drive. and gave me two old ones. i put them both in thinking they would work. so i turned on the comp and it told me no operating system found. i think i hooked the drives up right. i connected the power supply to them and i was told that i could hook up any ide cable to them. but no go i have a windows xp disk that i want to use but i cant get c prompt and i don't even have the gate way disks. what can i do?
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Dec 20, 2006
I have decided to install Windows XP (upgrade) on my home computer. Before beginning I need to know if the Windows 2000 Disks are required. I do not have them and I don't want to start this if there may be a problem.
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Dec 31, 2004
I am having problems booting my laptop, it is a HP Pavilion ze4111s laptop, installed with Windows XP Home edition. I have tried using all the system recovery disks that came with the laptop and tried rebooting from the cd-rom but nothing is working. It says eventually when it does something after test bios that HP EEPROM has been reinitialized and to resume or enter setup. when booting from cd-rom and pressing to resume, it says "wrong CD for this notebook".
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Jun 14, 2007
I want to reformat my PC and I have a question. I have a few programs to which I do not have access to the disks anymore. Is there anyway to backup these programs so I can use them on the fresh install?
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Aug 6, 2009
Why is my XP laptop from Dell will write on CD-R and read it but will not write or format DVD+RW disks? I get a message "disk is not re-writable".
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Sep 4, 2005
Ok so I custom built my computer from parts I had at home and completed it and was having problems getting it to boot at home. So I worked on it for a while and did get it to boot. So thus I packed it up and brought it to college. when I set up my computer in the dorm and turned it on it went to the phoenix bios screen then didnt detect my hardrive and thus failed to boot. After a couple of minutes in BIOS I got it to reconigze my HD adn I rebooted. On the Phoniex BIOS screen it gave me these errors:
Floppy disk(s) fail (40)
CMOS checksum error- Defaults loaded
It then allowed me to hit f1 to continue which I did and it displayed this error Hooking bootstrap interupt 18h... After this it fails to do anything. I have gotten to the point where it doesn't display the first 2 errors I mentioned through replacing the CMOS battery and disabling anything to do with floppy in the BIOS but it sometimes still displays the Hooking bootstrap error and has yet to actually load windows. The screen just goes black and the computer makes a constant hum like its actually doing something. I have switched IDE cables and don't have a windows xp cd for about another week when my parents come up.
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Jul 29, 2005
I have recently upgraded to Windows XP Professional, but I have several old zip disks that were compressed using Drivespace under Windows 98SE. Is there any way I can access these disks to get the stuff off them using XP? When I try accessing the drive I just get a file displayed called READTHIS.TXT which says the following:- "This disk was compressed using Windows 98 DriveSpace. To use this disk, you must first mount it. To mount it:
1. Run DriveSpace in Windows.
2. In the Drives list, click the drive that contains the disk, and then click Mount on the Advanced menu.
To automatically mount all compressed devices, use the Settings command on the Advanced menu. (If this file is located on a drive other than the drive that contains the compressed disk, then the disk is already ounted)." I do not have access to a computer with Windows 98 on it at this time.
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Sep 12, 2005
Is there a utility out there for low-level formatting SD disks? Or a utility that can delete and re-create partition on an SD disk. The disk is corrupted somewhat and Windows XP can't seem to format it.I don't need a picture recovery tool (i already have that).
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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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May 12, 2006
Got a new computer in Maryland it had XP Pro installed on it. While moving to Florida a case with the original installation disk was lost and the HD on the computer got seriously damaged as to be unreadable. I had the computer tested and I can replace the HD and have it in good working order; but, what about the XP installation. I still have the OEM number on the sticker on the side of the tower case. Am I out of luck and need to get a new copy of XP Pro or can I get some kind of replacement for my lost disks?
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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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Mar 16, 2008
I have stupidly moved some files on my C drive that my pc requires to boot up. Now i can't get it to boot at all and can't get into safe m I am getting the NTLDR missing, press ctrl + alt + delete to restart.I have looked on google and can't seem to get it fixed.
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Aug 31, 2008
i had got my laptop with vista home and i didnt make any recovery disks now i ve installed xp,can i still get the recovery f vista?
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Apr 2, 2008
Whenever I try to boot up Windows, in any mode, it gives me a blue screen that tells me to disable any anti-virus or disk defragmenter software, but I can't do that, because it won't let me boot up my computer into Windows! I'm running Media Center 2005, but I can't find my disks, so that may be a problem.
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Oct 26, 2007
I have a Gateway 7422GX which as a Mobility Radeon 9550. I repaired windows using the cd because I restarted my computer and it was either going to take 7min+ to boot, or just wasn't going to. I got stuck at the windows splash screen. I'm using windows professional. Whenever I try to install any of the drivers, I get the same error message: Setup did not find a driver compatible with your current hardware or operating system. Setup will now exit.
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