How to format hard drive with preinstalled windows xp?

W

woody

New Member
Ok, so my friend has got an Packard Bell imedia 5051 with preinstalled Windows xp.

It's in a bad way and I want to format the hard drive but i don't want to lose or mess up the Windows xp. He doesn't have any installation, recovery or any other sort of cd backup. I've checked PB's website and there is no recovery program and pressing F11 at reboot doesn't do anything.

So if anyone could give me some ideas in relatively simplified terms that would be much appreciated. :)
 
Last edited:
There is no way to reformat the hard drive without loosing data or needing to re-install windows xp. The best thing you can do it run some free programs to help clean it up and optimize it, i would suggest using the following programs: Microsoft Disk Defragmenter, Microsoft Disk Cleanup, Microsoft Scan Disk, Tune-Up Utilities 2004, Ad-Aware, Norton Anti-Virus. You can get most of these from download.com, and the microsoft products are already installed on your comp.

Also, what are the specs on the comp?
 
Thanks for the speedy reply. It's got a Celeron 1.8GHz, 192 MB of RAM and a 40GB hard drive. I've tried all those things apart from Norton. I've tried various spyware and adware removal programs but none of them can manage everything.

Anyone got any ideas? :confused:
 
Last edited:
well, just only one program will not detect everything. so runing a couple of them would be good. u can try deleting unused programs, unused windows preinstalled programs like msn explorer, games(if u dont play it), and other stuff..

all where you can find in add/remove, windows components.

u can try upgrading your RAM, if speed is the reason you mean its in a bad way. other than that, unless u are using most of your hdd , u can try cleaning up and get some space back..

but nonetheless, what do you mean when you say its in a bad way?
 
Well i can't get rid of the spyware/adware. I've tried Ad-Aware, Windows AntiSpyware beta, Spybot - Search & Destroy, Spyware Doctor, Webroot Spy Sweeper and they all find stuff but there's always some left over.

I've used Tune-Up utilities and have deleted everything i can. It would just be nice to start afresh. It's a pretty crappy computer so it's not worth spending any money on it but i'd like to save it from an early grave cos I'm learning about all this computer stuff and i'd be chuffed.

I can't believe that PB were not bright enough with this computer to think that people with preinstalled windows might want to format their hd. At least it's not my computer. I'd be going mad!
 
theres no way you can get your hard drive back when you reinstall windows you loose EVERYTHINK unless you go to the manufacturers website for the drivers but you said it doesnt come with any so... best thing to do is use partition magic format one half with a fresh copy of windows and leave the other half with windows on it
 
I've made some progress. I managed to get rid of a trojan or something blocking windows update functioning properly. Just downloaded a whole load of critical updates and SP2. There are still a bit of adware i can't get rid of but maybe we'll just have to live with that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top