Compaq Recovery Program

I have a quick question about the Compaq recovery program that came with my compaq presario. Does it actually delete everything when you tell it to reformat? I know that there are the two options, to just re-install windows and to reformat and reinstall windows.

The reason I ask is that I was having a problem with my wireless card, and then decided to do a complete format and reinstall, partially to solve the problem and partially because I needed to do it anyways for a general cleanup of my HD. But now I'm still having the same problem as I was before, so I'm not sure if it actually did what it said it was doing.

(note: my wireless card issues is detailed in the networking section)

 

Hello jerry,

In either case, you would notice whether the OS was "new" and also notice in the case of formating that your data is gone.

Regards - Charles

 

Yeah, all my data was gone, and Windows seemed to be reset. However, when running a series of programs, suggested by another user on this site, to clean up viruses, spyware, and unwanted reg keys I found the following: Alexa virus and over 200 useless keys. Now, I don't know how many of those entries are just left over from the re-installation of windows(and compaq, as it's recovery program resets the computer to "factory condition" which includes a bunch of programs that I didn't want.) but it seemed like kind of a high number to me for having just formated the HD. And the virus I don't understand either, as the computer has had no access to the internet since I formated it.

The reason I brought up the question is that I'm having an issue with my wireless card that might somehow be connected to this... Not sure at the moment.

 

Hi jerry,

The Alexa "virus" is a part of MS/MSN - it sure did come from the factory
http://www.imilly.com/alexa.htm

Also not a supprise that you have "useless" reg entries - all courtesy of Compag

Regards - Charles

 

Oooohhhhhh, heh thanks for the tip on the Alexa thing. And yeah, I figured those reg entries were from Compaq but hoped they weren't as cleaning it all up might have fixed my wireless problem . Sadly no, but at least I know that I really did wipe my HD.