Laptop problem, desktop not showing

[Hefemeister]

You can try a system restore to a time before the problem:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial142.html
You would still need to check your machine for malware as there will still be some lingering.

A reformat and reinstall is always a great way to go if you do not have important data to recover. Lots of times it is faster then tracking down the root of the problem.

but... not as much fun.

 

[WildStriker]

How do I reformat my laptop and do you need a cd to reinstall the os? My laptop comes with vista preinstalled.

 

[patonb]

You should have a hidden partion to reinstall Vista.

Do a google search for your model and recovery partion... its something like hitting f10 on boot.

 

[WildStriker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1vDZrWmHg0

Watched this video and realised that the person didn't need to reinstall vista. I'm quite confused.

 

[patonb]

Not sure you question, but this is how you do it.

People reinstall os's all the time to lazily clean up their systems.

 

[WildStriker]

Not sure you question, but this is how you do it.

People reinstall os's all the time to lazily clean up their systems.

The person in the video reformatted his laptop, but he didn't have to reinstall vista or anything.

Is there a way in finding out whether my laptop vista has a preinstalled recovery driver? So that I won't have to rely on a recovery cd to reformat? If it helps, my laptop model is a dell inspiron 6400.

 

[patonb]

Did you get a cd/dvd with it?

If not, then you do... From a quick google search, it indicates you do.

 

[KSoD]

If you got Vista on the system from Dell, and you did not get the Vista Media, then it is almost 100% positive that you got the Recovery Partition. Very few laptops came with no Recovery Partition and no media.

Also the video i can tell you is not what your going to be doing. What your going to be doing is resetting the PC to how it was when it came from the factory. Which means losing all of your data and programs. What the video is showing is a inplace upgrade. This is a trick used to basically perform a repair on a Vista install. It is not the same method as using a factory restore.

 

[DoubleHelix]

Have you tried just logging in with a different user account? If another one doesn't exist, create one, and try it.