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Starting Over - Any tips?

Braden D

Active Member
Joined
November 30, 2001
Messages
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City, State
Michigan
Year, Model & Trim Level
'95 Sport 4x4
My computer is a couple years old and over the years of loading and unloading all sorts of program the thing is just full of stuff I don't use and has slowed down. It is a Dell and I still have the re-install disks. What is the best way to remove and re-install just the basics so I can start over? And to thinks, several years ago I was up-to-data on all of this stuff. Things just are changing so fast these days. :confused:
 






Download all the stuff you want to save to a disk. Then I would take it and completely reformat the hard drive with the re-install disks. I have done that several times. The last time I bought a bigger hard drive and a program to format the hard drive. Made the C drive and then an D for programs and an E for stuff like pictures and stuff. Kept running smooth ever since. Hope that helps.

On the C drive, mostly is windows and programs needed to run the computer. Then on D is programs that I installed like word, excel, and everything else you will add and then the E drive is where I save all of my stuff, music pictures and all.
 






My experience...

I had to reformat my less-than-one-year-old Dell last month and couldn't be happier with it's performance now. It was terribly slow for a 2.8GHz and possibly infected (virus and/or spyware) and i just couldn't get it clean.

First I burned everything of even slight-importance to CD, reformatted (considered sectoring the hard drive but decided against it), reinstalled antivirus, scanned the backup cd and reinstalled only things of MAJOR importance (i.e. ****, games, etc)

It runs great now, although i could not find my "Dell Applications" cd, so i am without the OEM Norton Internet Security for which i paid for the renewal just months earlier. Symantec tech support SUCKS and will never use them again!

I'd recommend reformatting - especially easy if you've got nothing to lose. Just make sure you have each and every one of your reinstall disks (you can get your packing slip from dell online if you're not sure whether you have everything)
 






Burn a CD with all your documents & stuff. Don't try to burn programs already installed to a CD, it won't work. Then do a clean install. Once or twice a year, I like to do a clean install on my systems. I've made a Ghost image of my system with all drivers & stuff needed. I just insert the CD into the cd-rom and boot off of it and it restores to the original settings.
 






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