Have some question about formating a Compaq

Hi all,

I am have some questions about a friends compaq computer, it has never been cleaned out and is slower then molases. We want to fdisk it and reformat. My questions are number one he has a restore cd does this cd contain nessecary files that are needed for the puter or can I do like I do mine and run fdisk format and partition? Number two he has a 20 gig hdd and has a C: drive a D: for storage and a E: for CD rom does he need that D:? Im not sure if Compaq did that for a reason or what. It seems that the last time he did a restore (some time ago) all he did was run the restore cd and did nothing with windows. Should windows be uninstalled first and then reformat? or does it matter? Can some one please lead me in the right direction or process before I do this? Thanks for your help and responces.

Stan (FireDancer)

 

The restore CD will install windows and other programs so it will be like it was when it was first bought. Anything already on the drive will be gone. If your friend has anything on it he/she wants, it will need to be backed up off of that drive, it will be formatted. I would leave the D: drive alone, as Compaq has it there for their own reasons, problems will result if not there.
As you can see, this is my main problem with those restore CD's, though some will do a repair install. The only good thing I can say is that it copies the windows setup files onto the hard drive into c:\windows\options\cabs folder.
I would not recommend a fdisk and format, unless you want to wrestle with a Compaq.

 

okie dokie

Will do mark thanks for the info and no I dont want to wrestle with a compaq trying to talk him into a better system now LOL
thanks for the responce Ill just run restore and start fresh. You say it will run the win98 set up onto hdd so no need to install it then it will allrd be there right?

Have a good night and thank you

Stan

 

Yes, windows will be installed.

 

Hey, now...Compaqs are great! I've made a lot of money fixing Compaqs. Most of that money made babysitting the reinstall of all the third-party software after using their CDs since the only option with those things is "wipe it clean and put it back the way Compaq sent it."

It all depends on whether your friend has a "Quick Restore" or a "Recovery" CD. The Quick Restore disk has everything it needs to reformat/reinstall back to original condition. The Recovery CD only accesses the data on the D partition which is then used to reformat/reinstall (or maybe it's re-imaging, I never looked into it that far).

Either way, Compaq puts some sort of critical BIOS info into the install so you're forced to use their CDs and, even better, those CDs are system specific.

If all your friend has is a Recovery CD and he plans to keep that machine for a while, he would be well advised to call Compaq and get the Quick Restore disks. He'll probably have to pay for them but if the harddrive ever goes bad or the both partitions get hit by a destructive virus, the system will be dead in the water until he gets the Quick Restore disks.

Simplest is just to boot from the Quick Restore or Recovery CD and let it do its thing.

If you just want to reinstall Windows, run the setup.exe in C:\Windows\Options\Cabs.

 

Thanks so much

Hi all,

Yes he has the quick restore cd's i think i might just try to reinstall windows like you said to start off and see if that cleans things up

Thanks again,

FireDancer