Sorry, not sure if in correct forum. I have a PC and the motherboard says Asus - P5GC-MX(if necessary) It originally came if XP but I have Vista Ultimate. I was wondering if there is a way to restore back to factory settings or at least clean my HD of everything except for Windows and drivers. When I installed Vista, it said everything will be erased but my HD spaced was still 90% used up.(I have 120 GB HD). Please help.
Reformat - Please Help
- Thread starter Kanbabrif
- Start date
- Status
patonb
Golden Master
- Messages
- 9,748
- Location
- In Gov't Regulated Cubical
I think he wants to fix up his xp, but vista won't do it... as its vista.
Do you have you xp key still? If you do just get a copy of xp, around the age of yours, and use your key to fix it up.
Do you have you xp key still? If you do just get a copy of xp, around the age of yours, and use your key to fix it up.
patonb
Golden Master
- Messages
- 9,748
- Location
- In Gov't Regulated Cubical
Okay, what os are you on??
If you wanbt to wipe it, just delete things then....
If you wanbt to wipe it, just delete things then....
Hello,
Alright, after re-re-re-re-reading the OP I think I get the issue now, lol.
You had Windows XP installed, but then you installed Windows Vista. However, after installing Windows Vista, you realised that data from your old OS installation (that is, Windows XP) is still on the hard drive, as it wasn't erased during the installation of Windows Vista.
Okay. Well the likely reason why this has occurred is because the entire hard drive wasn't formatted prior to the installation of Windows Vista.
If there are a lot of old files on the hard drive left from your old OS installation, and you don't know what or where the data is, you could re-install Windows Vista, ensuring that this time you format the entire drive (and all it's partitions that are no longer required). Alternatively, and perhaps the most convenient solution (if there aren't many old files and you know the whereabouts), is just to erase these files yourself. Getting rid of these files will require some investigation first:
Alright, after re-re-re-re-reading the OP I think I get the issue now, lol.
You had Windows XP installed, but then you installed Windows Vista. However, after installing Windows Vista, you realised that data from your old OS installation (that is, Windows XP) is still on the hard drive, as it wasn't erased during the installation of Windows Vista.
Okay. Well the likely reason why this has occurred is because the entire hard drive wasn't formatted prior to the installation of Windows Vista.
If there are a lot of old files on the hard drive left from your old OS installation, and you don't know what or where the data is, you could re-install Windows Vista, ensuring that this time you format the entire drive (and all it's partitions that are no longer required). Alternatively, and perhaps the most convenient solution (if there aren't many old files and you know the whereabouts), is just to erase these files yourself. Getting rid of these files will require some investigation first:
- Do you know where this 'old' data is on the hard drive? For example, is it on the partition where Windows Vista is installed, or is it on a different partition on the hard drive?
- Do you know what this old' data is? For example, is it just system files left from your old Windows XP installation such as 'Documents and Settings' and a 'Windows' folder, or is it System Recovery data for the original Windows XP installation put on the hard drive by the manufacturer?
- Status
