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I am trying to reformat my hard drive on my old laptop to give to my son. When I put the recovery disc that came with the laptop to do this, there are three options:
1) RECORVERS C:DRIVE ONLY . This formats C:drive and restores the contents of my hard disk to its original state. Nothing will be performed to D:drive and te volumes of C: and D:drives will not be changed. Now, D: drive is my floppy drive. that is the drive that the recovery cd is in.2) RECOVERS BOTH C: AND D:DRIVE
This formats both C: and D:drive. Then restores the contants of my hard disk to its original state in C:drive. the data on my hard disk will be completely deleted. This also says "C: RECOVER (30GB) D: FORMAT3) FORMATS HARD DISK AND CREATES NEW PARTITION
This formats whole hard disk and creates new partition. Then restores the contents of my hard disk to its original state in C:drive. the data urrently stored on my hard disk will be completely deleted.Can anyone help me figure out what I am supposed to do here? I just want to reformat the entire hard drive. I don't want a partition (at least I don't think I do)
Option 3 is the one you want. This will delete all existing data and prepare the disk for the installation of an operating system.
Creating a partition is not a problem. One will have to be created in order to install an operating system. You create a partition, then you format it then you install the operating system. With the recovery disk all this is automatic.
You could use option 2 which will also delete your data and put the laptop back into the state when you first got it. You son will have to do that if he is to use the laptop. You will have to give him the recovery disk as it will be useless on anything except the computer it came with.
Stuart
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Thank you. So if I do Option 3, can my son use it as his laptop also? You mentioned it in the next one, but not the first. Thank you so much for helping me!
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If you use Option 3 your son is still going to have to install an Operating System before he can use it. He needs the recovery disk for this or he will have to go out and buy another.
Stuart
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Also, I have the full purchased Office XP Professional CD. So would there be another better option, like to wipe my hard drive and then do a new clean install of XP Pro. Thanks again for all your help! Lisa
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Thanks Stuart. I actually have both. The original recovery CD that came with the laptop and a purchased Office XP Professional I purchased for my desktop.
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YIKES! All was going well (don't you hate stories that start that way) and now I got an Error #45 CRC error in data box during my reinstall from original boot disk. Any thoughts anyone?
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A CRC error is either an error reading the CD or an error on the hard disk.
Try booting from the Windows XP CD and deleting all the partitions from that. Create a new partition and try reinstalling from there.
Stuart
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Thanks. So if it give me an option to set the volume of c:drive to 10GB or 20GB, which do you prefer? I have no idea what this is for....maybe the OS?
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10Gbs will be enough for drive C:. This is where the Operating System will be installed. Once you get the OS up and running you will need to partition and format the rest of the hard disk where you can install your applications.
Stuart
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Note the "where you can install your applications."
Your son should install all his applications on the second drive, to prevent running out of space on the C: drive. I suggest that he also move the 'My Documents' folder to the second drive. This can be accomplished with Tweakui.
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