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djk1

Hi all
I have had a few problems with my PC and only just got rid of a virus which i think has done a bit of damage cos things don't work how they used to, i am also quite new to the PC world but keen to learn but maybe a little to quick to ignore those error messages and delete stuff willy nilly so i want to restore my PC back to its factory settings,
firstly how do i do a complete restore and secondly, i have got Norton ghost which i use for my back ups on a regular basis but if i use it to put every thing back on will it just revert my PC back to how it is now which is a S%*t state, or would it be better to install everything separately, as i have an external HHD which all my folders downloads etc are on as well as the ghost back up
any suggestions would be appreciated
Cheers
Dave

Windows xp Home Edition

radar

Hi Djk1,

Welcome to The PCHF,

Ok there are a few ways you could go around doing what you want to.
One is to do a restore from your recovery cd's that came with the pc from the manufacturer, bear in mind that you might have some fun and games with drivers and utilities if you do not have them on the manufacturers cd's.
Some pc's do come with a recovery partition on the hard drive, which you access by pressing a Function key, it should let you know just after the initial POST test at boot up which key this is.
If you have an XP cd you can insert it (while in windows) click on "start", "run", type "sfc /scannow" (without the "") then press "enter", this checks and replaces missing/corrupt system files.
Please make sure that you backup all your important data beore you do any of these just to be safe.
Let us know how you get on

joe5

Originally Posted by djk1

i have got Norton ghost which i use for my back ups on a regular basis but if i use it to put every thing back on will it just revert my PC back to how it is now which is a S%*t state, or would it be better to install everything separately, as i have an external HHD which all my folders downloads etc are on as well as the ghost back up

If you have a backup from a moment when the pc was working 100% then you could use that , but if you use a backup from say yesterday then it will also have all those problems after you use that backup.

I would install everything fresh , then make a image of the drive and save that somewhere save. Then if you run in to problems you can use that to restore youre pc in minutes to a moment when everything is fresh installed.

Do you have an XP disc or recovery discs?