I have a desktop pc which was running slow so I decided to format it, and reinstall everything to get it like new. But I formatted it and now it's incredibly slow. My question is, how can I make it run normal, but also, how can I format it completely and really leave it like when I bought it because I apparently did something wrong. I used the cd's created by the pc when I first bought it 5+ years ago. But the pc is super slow. I thought formatting would really delete everything. Am I wrong?

Check that your memory is what it should be.Bad slot might cause this. Did you include all the motherboard drivers? "Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, antivirus, anti-spyware, Live CD's, backups, Make an autorun.inf folder on all usb drives.

Sorry, but I don't understand what are the motherboard drivers. Should I try to format it again?

Formatting should delete everything. To check and see if all drivers are loaded.... start... control panel...system...hardware...device manager... Do you see any yellow ! marks? If you do need drivers, you might want to try a driver pack...below is one of many available. http://translate.google.com/transla...

"...Sorry, but I don't understand what are the motherboard drivers..." When you reformat a drive and thus lose everything on it.. you also remove the drivers for some aspects of the Mother Board (MoBo) itself. These are usually provided on a floppy (were in the olde days) or these days possibly a cd/dvd (even a usb-stick?). I think that for some recent MoBo drivers they're included within XP itself; but not always? If you didn't install them yourself - and you did use full version cd/d/v to re-instal XP... - then it may be that you still need to provide those drivers afresh. Google for the drivers for your MoBo and saave to floppy (if your desktop can use one) or to a cd/dvd; install as per instructions on the website. If you know the make etc. of your MoBo go straight the that site? If you used a recovery disk to re-install the OS then likely those drivers were included in that disk; but not always... Again might be useful to locate them elsewhere and install as appropriate?

If the OP is loading the recovery disks for that computer then all the drivers should be loading too. The problem is that there will be no service packs or updates. There will also be no drivers for any cards that may have been added to the original hardware configuration as it came from the factory. aerismel What tasks are you performing when you think the computer is slower than before?

aerismel If you had a successful restore to factory specs and installed the service packs and updates then if you are running slower than before you may have picked up a nasty.