computer question

D

denn454

turbo swimmer
Joined
Mar 2, 2003
my computer is on the verge of death. it has the origional windows 98 and that it totally obsolete now. i don't run hardly anything on it. the computer itself is still fast enough, even by todays standards (it was WAY overbuilt back in its day)

anyways i have a disc and all the codes from a laptop i have for windows xp, i want to totally get rid of everything, start fresh. how do i do this? do just format the c drive? will that still leave anything to get it running again or will it be totally dead?

thanks for the help.
 
I you format drive C:/ everything will be totally gone. After that put the xp cd in and restart the computer. Choose run computer from disk option and there you go. There are more steps to this because I have reformatted my comp many times. I found directions online to help me through the process. They came with pictures and made the job extremely easy.
 
XP has some minimum requirements:
Processor: 233 MHz, 300 MHz or higher recomended
RAM: 64MB, 128MB or higher recomended (more like 512 in my opinion)
HD space: 1.5GB, 4GB or higher recomended
Monitor: VGA monitor

I've run XP on a 500 MHz machine with 128MB of memory and it was a dog. I just replaced my 1 GHz machine with 768MB of memory due to it just slowly consuming itself. I'm a little paranoid and run a ton of security, so the machine just would no longer run apps in a timely manner. It will make a kick a$$ Linux machine in a few weeks. At the office, we no longer spec machines with less than 1GB of memory. XP likes all the memory you can throw at it. What you want to do will work, if your machine meets the minimum specs, but will not be exactly legal :rolleyes: .
John
 
ssssshhhhhh....

its something like an 850 mhz which runs faster than our new computer that is a 1.3g i think. i don't know why that is. it has something like 512 ram maybe more i'm not sure but i know it has at least that. i'm not sure about the monitor but i have access to a few so its not a big deal.

but i want to delet all the crap i have, i have a virus somewhere in my computer that keeps poping up on the virus scan. and i have a ton of crap i dont' want anymore anyways. do i delete all that myself manually or will it do it for me? if it wont' what do i need to save?
 
Formating the hard drive will erase the drive entirely! This means NO information, no viruses, no data, no nothing.... Everything is gone!!! If there is anything you would like to save, simply burn it to a cd. Just make sure you get the whole folder, especially the dynamic link liberary(.dll)
and executable(.exe) files. From the manufacturer the BIOS is set to boot from the hard drive, then from the cd. This means the computer will see the O.S. on the hard drive and not allow it to boot through to the cd. To fix this simply boot to bios after post and set the boot priority to boot from the cd in sequence. After this hit escape and select "save and reboot". Then follow the directions. It sounds hard but its really not that difficult. If you have any other questions just let me know and ill try to help you......


Travis-
 
ok travis i THINK i got what you said. i have everything i want to save backed up right now. next step is to format the C drive, then just turn the computer on with the windows cd in the computer. turn it on and tell bios to look for the cd, and it does the rest? did i get that right?

or do i right now do a restart, tell it to go to bios before windows can load and tell it to look for the os from the cd rather than the hd?

it doesnt' sound TOO hard i'm just not sure on the exact process and i don't want to screw it up and have to take it to someone and have them do it.
 
find some directions online....they will walk you through the whole process. Make sure u save any docs. u want to keep cuz once u format the drive everything is gone forever. Dont go to anyone to do it. Its easy as hell and not worth paying 100$ to have it done
 
Simply tell the bios to boot from the cd first. Its set up to boot from the hard drive to look for the O.S. first. So when it finds the windows on the hard drive it wont let the bios boot further in sequence. Thats the only hard part is getting the bios to boot from there first, but its not hard. Mikebart101 is right, your 100% better off doing it for yourself because belive me this will most likely not be the last time you have to do this. Pretty soon youll beable to do it with your eyes closed..... unless thats just me :( Do you know how to boot to your bios? Thats the only hard part of the process.

Travis-
 
i've done it before. actually my computer was built from parts i bought at a computer store, but that was probably 4 years ago if not longer.

i think just as you turn the computer on you have to hit esc or something like that.

i'll look it up online.
 
i finally did it. it took forever to figure it out, it wasnt nearly as easy as i had expected. and i thought it was going to be hard. if i didnt' have 2 hard drives i don't know how i would have formated them both.

I started out formating my d drive, loading windows onto it. then formating my C drive, loading windows onto it then reformating the D drive. i did a lot of other stuff too before i got it figured out, i made one hell of a mess.

anyways i think i have one problem left to work out. apparently miscrosoft has gotten smart about people using illegal software (like i'm doing pretty much) i have to put in the code and it gets on the internet to make sure this code hasn't been used for another computer, which it has been. so i can only use it for 30 days. no big deal i can just change my date on the computer.

but anyways the only thing i really use this computer is for flight sim, i installed it today and it will start up and everything then jams up and won't do anything. i can't even alt ctrl delete it.

anyways does anyone have any idea how to fix this? i have ran a scan disc or whatever its called in xp and also did a defrag on the whole disc. it used to work fine... thanks!
 
How did the machine run before installing flight sim? Flight sim might have a problem with a componet on the machine.
John
 
it seems to run great actually. the internet is faster than ever. but I've tried to load a few different games i have laying around and with each one it will stop the computer dead in its tracks. thats from anything loaded from a cd.

I've loaded aol messenger and it works fine, so its not like it won't run any program just anything from a cd. i have 2 cd drives, and i've tried them both and got the same problem.

i'm thinking this might become an internet only computer. I'm looking around for answers but if any one has any ideas i'm willing to try pretty much anything. including a hammer through the screen.
 
Have you tried compatibility mode for your games. XP did away with DOS, so any older games that are DOS based will have problems. Some older games will work in compatibility mode.
 
i've tried quite a bit of stuff. i have tried using both hard drives, and a bunch of different programs. I'm wanting to get flight sim 2002 to work, which is compatable with xp, actually i think xp is recomended for it. i've been using my laptop to run it which actually does pretty good i just can't hook up all the gizmos i have for it. I have a set of rudder pedels that use the old plug insted of a usb. i guess i'll go to radioshack and see if they have an adapter.

I really could care less but i use the flight sim to help me get in extra pratice without the price of renting a plane (around $100 an hour, ouch)
 
ok sorry to bring this one back up but i ran into some more problems. with the xp disc i was only able to run it for 30 days before it expired and wasn't able to be used (the disc is for another computer i have) i tried loading 98 back in it but the internet was not working and for the life of me i couldnt' make it work. somehow it also ended up with a really low resolution and 16 colors on the display and that couldnt' be changed. so i decided to put up with reloading windows every 30 days to have something that will at least work. heres my new problem.

i did the same thing i did before, format the 2nd hard drive, in bios shut off the 1st so it has to load windows on the 2nd, thats where i'm running into problems. it beings to load on a blue screen and goes through some stuff and it gets to a point where it says "setup is starting windows" and thats it, it won't go any farther than that.

to get around that i attempted to go back into the windows 98 and load xp through there, it goes a little farther, shows that its transfering files and what not, then goes back to the windows setup screen (plain blue with a grey bar at the bottom) and eventually gets to the "setup is starting windows" and it stops. i walked away for about 3 hours hoping it would do something but nothing.

any ideas?
 
Computer fix

I'm sorry but Travis no longer works here. I am going to give you a number both Travis and I use frequently with computer questions. This is a friend of ours (Johnny) who has spent countless hours on the phone with us resolving problems. He won't charge you to talk in fact you may have a time of it hanging up.

Computer Commando
(Johnny)
770-222-6111

Paul
 
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