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How to restore computer to factory settings

post #1 of 6
8/11/05 at 7:42pm
Thread Starter 
Ive recieved my dads old work computer, and would like to restore it to it's original factory settings, how do I got about doing this?
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post #2 of 6
8/11/05 at 7:52pm
If you got all of the original disks that came with it then there should be a restore disc of some sort. If not, then you could find the service tag on the system (I think if it's a desktop it will be somewhere possibly on the side of the case, and if it's a laptop then it will ben on the bottom I think) and you can download all the software for the system from their support site under the downloads section.

Good luck, hope this helps at least some.
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post #3 of 6
8/11/05 at 7:59pm
Thread Starter 
The only disc I found was the Windows XP cd. I put that in, rebooted the PC so that it would boot off of the cd first, and I tired re-installing windows. After, I rebooted it again and it brought me to my desktop, (still with the photo of my family in the backround), and it just freezes. Any suggestions?
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post #4 of 6
8/11/05 at 8:11pm
Did it boot off of the CD? If not, you may need to enable that through the BIOS. When you restart you should get some sort of message concerning restoring the drive with options to erase all and restore to original configuration.

I think it's F2 to go into the BIOS, you need to make sure that the boot sequence is set for cd drive first, then save that, restart, and it should begin booting from the cd and give you some options to restore.
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post #5 of 6
8/12/05 at 1:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ihatethe90s
After, I rebooted it again and it brought me to my desktop, (still with the photo of my family in the backround), and it just freezes. Any suggestions?
Delete the partitions and create new ones before you install the OS.
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post #6 of 6
8/12/05 at 3:19am
How old is this laptop. If it was made after the middle of last year, there should be a partition on there that restores it to the factory settings. However, it's possible that if it was a business computer, that partition is not there. The easiest thing to do is to delete any existing partitions, create a couple of new ones, format those partitions, and reinstall Windows on one of them. Use one partition for Windows and programs, and the other for music, pictures, and the like.
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