I restarted and kept hitting f10 which I thought was how you start the recovery partition. I followed all the steps and when I rebooted all the old files were here, plus a lot of junk that came with the computer when I first bought it. I wanted the computer to run like new but now it’s even slower than before I "reformatted" it.
How do I wipe my HP computer clean of all its files and start over?
Tagged with: hp • hp computer • recovery partition
Filed under: Clean Up Computer
To start, you need all your software (ideally on discs) (and Win XP/Vista) to start. When you reformat, you cant get the data back at all. SO you may want to check this before you start. (Just remembered that HP don’t supply install discs anymore, so ask a friend for a Install disc of the same version of windows on your PC. EG Vista Ultimate on PC, Vista Ultimate on disc. To authorise, use the code printed on the Windows label on the PC Case)
Firstly make sure all the data you will need (or possibly need) is copied to a USB flash-drive, DVD-RW, CD-RW, etc (Just not the hard drive).
Secondly, download an ISO writer on a computer that can burn CD’s. I suggest CDBurnerX for windows ( http://www.cdburnerxp.se/ ).
Thirdly download "Boot and Nuke" Software ( http://www.dban.org/download ). This will leave a ISO file , and use CDBurnerX to burn it to a CD-R/CD-RW.
Place the CD in the drive and restart, it should boot the CD (if not look for a Boot Order key when the PC starts up).
Lastly follow the steps on the software (It’s pretty self-explain, but there is a FAQ on the Boot and Nuke Site), and after that’s done, reinstall your OS.
I would set aside a afternoon / evening to do this property
Very easy – just open My Computer, click C: to highlight, click File, click FORMAT.
However, this is usually considered the last resort as (1) you will have to reinstall everything, and (2) you had better have all the CDs and appropriate information.
Before you go this route, why not try to set to factory defaults?
http://www.ehow.com/how_4479537_restore-hp-computer-factory-settings.html
First make sure you have saved important things to you,pictures,files,etc to disk,then go on to this.Also favorite/,bookmarks,write them down,you will loose them when doing the below action.
Hopefully you have the recovery disk that came with your computer,if you do FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS on it,first it will reformat the hard drive,that means it will wipe clean the hard drive,then it will reinstall the OS and other programs,this will take the computer to where it was when you first got it.After this is done,go to windows update to get the latest up dates.Then to places where you got other software etc.