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Wiping out computer and starting over?

post #1 of 14
12/10/05 at 11:48pm
Thread Starter 
This isnt dell related but my gateway desktop is a good 6-7 yrs old and its starting to get pretty slow and crashes a lot. I ran norton anitvirus, avast, spysweeper and a registry cleaner and they all say my pc is clean but whenever I run scandisk in thorough mode it finds errors and I run defragment but it doesnt make the pc any smoother running. So I want to know how do I go about, is it rebooting? I want to wipe the entire harddrive clear and use the os disks and any other disks that I recieved when I bought it to reload and start fresh as if I just bought it new. How should I go about saving files that I would like to keep? I know that your supposed to wipe out the harddrive every 10 months or so to keep everything running smoothly but never knew how. Any help wold be extremely appreciated. Thank you very much.
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post #2 of 14
12/11/05 at 12:26am
if scandisk show errors i believe you need a new hd-save data you need to cd.
download all drivers from gateway site, burn to cd or usb2 key drive, buy new 7200 rpm hd and install same and install xp, then drivers, then xp sp(s), then all programs.
use a good defragmenter and defrag after each step.
its easy have fun only a machine they are hard to break lol.
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post #3 of 14
12/11/05 at 12:35am
Thread Starter 
About the scan disk it will find errors but it also says that it fixed them all. It doesnt find errors everytime but most of the time. I also dont run the scandisk often maybe once every 2 months.

I understand how to save the data now but how do I wipe it out? Is there somewhere I go that has a button to press that clears out everything?
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post #4 of 14
12/11/05 at 2:37am
google is your friend
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post #5 of 14
12/11/05 at 2:57pm
Googling will get you detailed information about what you exactly want to do. Essentially all you need is a boot disk which windows can create for you in the Add/Remove Programs option in Control Panel. From there windows might ask for your original Restore cd if there isnt already a copy of one on the harddrive. If this is the case and you do not have a cd laying around you can always google for a link to a "Format Disk" This disk will contain basic tools needed to boot into a primitive OS called DOS. You will need to reformat your disk so assuming you are successful in retrieving one then you can read more about it online or come back here and I can essentially provide you with a short walkthrough on what you can do.
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post #6 of 14
12/12/05 at 12:54am
you could use the xp disk to format..
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post #7 of 14
12/12/05 at 1:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kakarot
you could use the xp disk to format..
If the computer is 5-6 years old we have to assume he doesnt have windows xp or a computer capable of running it.
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post #8 of 14
12/12/05 at 7:12pm
Thread Starter 
Yea it has windows Me. I successfully formatted it. Well sorta. I popped in the os disk and restarted a screen came up and one of the options was to erase the hdd and reinstall windows me. I did this. I loaded all 3 os disks. but now whenever i have to restart it or just go to turn it on for that matter it will go through the start up screen checking all devices showing my ram and cpu but on the next screen it should go to the opening of windows me with that blue bar that runs along the bottom but instead it goes black and says invalid system diskette. I have to insert the windows me cd and press enter inorder for it to go into windows. What happened? How can I fix this. I managed to install the drivers for my ethernet card and my ati radeon 9200 card and reinstall my yahoo dsl so I could ask this question about the start up.
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post #9 of 14
12/12/05 at 7:45pm
WinMe blows.

i threw it out the day i had that!
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post #10 of 14
12/12/05 at 7:57pm
Its possible you have your system set up to search for a boot device other than your harddisk. The cd automatically guides your computer if you already have windows installed. If you know how to load into your BIOS screen or gateway computers might refer to as the SETUP screen then go into it but if you have no idea what your doing then at least find out if you can and then we can guide you.
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post #11 of 14
12/12/05 at 8:35pm
Thread Starter 
Is that when i start it up and press f1 and it goes into a different screen with tabs such as securty and boot and such. I went into that and in the boot I have boot up floppy then cd. then I went to save changes and exit.
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post #12 of 14
12/13/05 at 3:27am
You want to change that so your cd rom doesnt boot 2nd instead you want the harddrive to boot up 2nd.
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post #13 of 14
12/13/05 at 1:46pm
Thread Starter 
On the exit tab I pressed return to default settings and exit and it worked. No problems now. Anyone know how to diable the network password thing upon before entering windows? It askes for user name and password but I just hit cancel and then Im at the desktop. I turned it off once before when I got the computer but know I dont remember how I did it.
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post #14 of 14
12/13/05 at 6:11pm
Control Panel -> User Accounts -> "Change the way users log on and off"
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