Alright I need to reformat my computer
 

Old piece of shit XP laptop that I might try and sell. I want to completely wipe it, just put it back to the way it came out of the box with XP loaded but nothing else. I don't believe it came with an installation disk, if it did it's long gone. But there is a recovery partition, I just have no clue how to use it.

So do I have to boot it from the recovery partition, or what? And if so, how?

You need a windows CD to do a real format if you are really wanting to start over.

You go into your bios on startup (delete, or f8 i believe depending on the PC), set your PC to boot from CD-ROM first. Then start up with the CD in the drive.. wait till it asks to boot from CD and press a key.

Goes straight forward from there. Delete partition and create a new one, install to the new one.

Sometimes you can also just access a boot manager on startup by pressing another key (the keys are all listed at the bottom of your screen while starting up), and boot from CD there.

Is there no way to do it without a CD? I thought computers with recovery partitions were designed specifically to do this sort of thing without a disc.

There should be a key you can press when you boot up (similar to getting into Safe Mode) that will let you choose to recover from the partition.

Try pressing F10 or F11 repeatedly when the computer starts and hopefully something will happen.

There is a prompt to press F11 to go to Recovery mode or something like that, but when I do that, it just wants me to insert a CD.

What brand of computer is it?

My E-machine (what little pieces of the original are actually left), was pretty easy to reformat from the recovery partition.

You're just going to re-install windows and not the drivers? And sell it like that?

Or by reformat and put XP did you mean the drivers too...

And the best way IMO to format is to get into the command prompt (non MS-one , if possible, which seems to be disappearing) and simply type format c: as well as any partitions that need to be taken care of.
I always suggest possibly a small tiny d: drive partition for drivers, or simply burn it to one (or more) disks and keep them physical in the computer if there is room(which there usually isn't with laptops, I keep them all in one big desktop, along with other important CD's of that nature)

Get a disk. OK? Even download one.
Also, do you have another PC you can use while this one is being rebuilt? Because that helps the process when getting drivers etc.

I will help you through this step by step if you like.

He's right, the BIOS I forgot... That's the other way, I'd do the first way he explained over the second, if you haven't done it already... Boot from CD is how I did it on a computer a few weeks ago that had no BIOS or non Microsoft old school DOS. and spyware showed up within a day,all I downloaded was bitcommet (which didn't do it to the other PC I maid for recording Justin.tv. the one who's gay and wont put out, put takes it in the in holes) ... I think Warms and or spyware drag over somehow.... As .dll files that are necessary or something (can build them but im far from knowing what I'm talking about a lot of the time, you get a hobby into sound electronics for a few years and go from zero to hero in computer knowledge....good Thing there are always people who don't know dick all you can make money off of with the simplest modifications or reformatting.

I like replacing Windows Media Extender(or whatever its called) with the god of home-brew software and give them the ability to stream any movie (.Avi(divx) or MPEG(2-4) etc, as well as Music (wma. mp3, as well as many picture files) from all the harddrives in the computer wirelessly threw the router. All you need is the program on the computer, a shared folder between computers doesn't hurt to make things more simple so you don't have to switch between computers to find a file. Right now I have every episode of family guy and 18 seasons of the Simpson (to test them), its amazing...

Like I said if I get 1 more terabyte I could probably move all my movies or atleast TV shows ro the portable hardrives and hook it up and have 2gigs of info available on 3 box's in the house (ps3, 360, and Wii when punch out comes out) I know you can do it with a lot of things, including a psp hooked up to the TV, I wonder what the cheapest piece of hardware is (video phone?) that can hook up to the TV for access to the library, cause i like my sis and 360 on the same HD TV nexrt to eachother.
To not break my TV using the Wii I want to play punch out using the projector(I'd have to post some pictures of that, you should see playing Battlefield modern combat on the projector while fire off the heli gun at 96inches(atleast) with a powered sub, with two other slightly weaker subs that are by wierd, one under the hallowed out couch the other behind my cinama chairs (black atomens with foot stools) the main one I can feel outside in my car from the basement, and its a two car garage house.

I don't play video games much at all, I just seem to buy themn and put a lot of money into them. But playing a war game like modern combat or call of duty with a motor based machine gun is TITS, knowing every shot i take the neighbors feel and the doorknobs shake.

Don't Download one, ISO's are imbeded with spyware and trojans.....just get a Serial number (go to a college, or highschool depending on your age, 'n take theirs, they use vista now) or even take one off a friend who now uses vista, what would he care. just get the disk legit, it isn't hard, pay someone 5bucks at a net cafe for a copy of his if worst comes to worst (someone will have it in their laptop case, that is if you can't find one from any friend or someone at work, or family, you can makea copy no problem, they aren't right protected cause of the CD KEY)

don't be silly and download windows with a pre-imeded trojan, people hate vista and got pissed when they stoped making the cd keys....now they're stuck with the OS that sucks all the ram, i'd rahter have that than a trojan though, as much as vista sucks and makes my good computers runj like my slow computers on XP

BOTTEM LINE : Don't think just because its a .iso.. or .bin torrent its safe and just like the store bought disk, Binnary can be modified obviously... alot of tiimes it is but it's very possible it has been tampered with(even a small security link that lets it the second you set up a network connection.

I've installed lots of OS's using downloaded ISO's. Just grab a torrent with lots of good feedback.

Yeah if you are going to go to pirate bay for the torrent, read the comments. Also use a good legit anti-virus software to scan it before doing anything else with it.

lol sovereignty's posts are the most jumbled mish-mash of randomness

2 months ago, guys. Ended up just giving it away to a friend because it was a piece of shit anyways. Thanks for the advice though.

i do not know the product key. :'(

should be on a sticker on your PC/Laptop