Really need some help with a clean install..

Hi there..

I just picked up an Acer Ferrari 4005 WLMI yesterday, and I would like to wipe it clean before I start to use it as my own.. and I have some questions..

First, I have the Recovery CD's (1&2), the system CD and the Norton CD (that I wont be installing). I thought that if you put the Rec. CD in that it would start the process, but thats not the case. The manual that came with it is rather vague, and only provides details on how to wipe the system if you dont have the disks.

So does anyone know how I start the cleaning process? Also, upon reinstallation with the CD's, will I still have the Windows and Office programs that are on my laptop now? I would think that they would be on the disks, but I just wanted to make sure, as I have never reformatted anything before.

Anyways, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

well, there is a simple way... download CCleaner.

and to do it "deeper" ...use disk defragmenter

thats what i do.. ... and if u want use disk cleanup (which also helps).. do it before disk defragmenter

cheers

 

no, this is an extremely POOR solution.

all you need to do is boot to a windows disc. you have to be careful with "recovery discs" because they may restore your system to "factory spec" which means "with bloatware"

 

If you are talking about a clean install, that involves formating the hard drive and putting everything back on it, so no. When you boot up it will have nothing on it except the OS and the Drivers normally.

It is normally very simple to do, considering they are made to be just that. I was exactly the same on my first format, very wearey and unsure but once you actually do it, you wonder why you ever put it off.

What you do is you place the disk labeled one in the tray and restart, you will then need to change in your bios the boot settings to make your computer boot from the CD/DVD drive not the hard drive (remember to change this back afterwards). When you restart again it will boot from the disk and should give you some sort of interface, from there it can vary but it does guide you through it.

I say it varys because i get a command line screen asking which Format, and partition options i want and then boots up in some ASUS screen. The whole process for me on re-installing XP using those disks took some 3 hours. When i got a free copy of Vista from college and installed that it took 40 mins. So it can varey on time as well as interface.

 

an install of Windows XP should not take more than 1 hour at the very most

 

well i know that, but i can tell you when i used my recovery disks to do an install of XP Pro it took 3 or more hours... well that long until i could use it anyway because it installed drivers, but still i know that it shouldn't of taken it that long.

 

I do not have a Windows XP disk.. unless it is on one of the disks I named above..

That being said, is my only option to do a complete reboot using the disks? If so, how hard is this "bloatware" to remove?

 

The whole reason I want to do a cleaning is because there is something that is hanging up when I try do do a full system scan for spyware and viruses.

It keeps getting caught up on something in the C:/windows section.. it just grinds to a hault with 100% resources going to it, and nothing happening for 10 mins... just locks up.

Im fairly certain this system is virus free, and Im not sure if I can just delete the problem files if need be.

 

The recovery disks contain windows XP so thats what you will be using.

The only option is to do a full format and install of Windows, if thats not what you want you can always use cleaning software and guides on the forums. Bloatware can generally be removed in msconfig, by just removing it from start-up as well as removing the un-needed programs on add/remove programs.

In that case a full install is best, so just follow the quick guide i gave

 

jjj -
I'm new to the Acer way of doing things, so I don't know if all their notebooks are this way. I had to tap on alt+F10 while the lappy was rebooting to get into the recovery utility.
This was with the #1 Recovery DVD in the tray, and BIOS already set to boot from the optical drive.
If you want to wipe the drive, you can do that with Darik's BootNuke, most any utility disc that comes with retail HDD's, a GPartedLiveCD, etc. If you use GPartedLiveCD, make sure to format the HDD to NTFS or the Recovery DVD won't be able to proceed.
If you just want to start over because you suspect a virus, just use the Recovery DVD. No need to wipe the drive first.