How do you wipe a computer clean using vista?

Question

I have a computer with windows vista home basic, that I want to wipe clean. It is running very slow and freezes up constantly. I bought the computer with vista installed but it didn't come with any disks.

Answer 1

you have 3 options to recover from this

(1) vista comes with something called the system restore utility, this allows you to restore you hard drive to a previous point, so what you could do is restore it back to a point before this happened, although some viruses duplicate themselves by saving into the system restore file.

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(2) buy a new copy of vista home basic, and wipe the hard drive. it costs some money, but it will allow you to reinstall should anything go wrong again. here are the steps to follow if you plan on using the latter option:

(1) download a program called darik's boot and nuke, what this will do is write a string of random 1s or 0s to your hard drive.

(2) pop in the installation disc and follow the instructions, reformat the hard drive before continuing.

(3.) once you've reinstalled windows, find out what kind of video card you have, and install the drivers for it, if you don't have the CD for it then download the drivers straight from the manufacturer's website.

(4.) reinstall any apps you had

(5.) download antivirus software (Id go with bufferzone, it works differently from conventional antivirus software. it forms a buffer that programs can work within, and if viruses execute within them, they can't touch your computer. if it starts acting weird then just empty the buffer, like waking up from a bad dream. it also has a scanner inside the buffer. it's kind of like watching an explosion form behind an unbreakable glass wall.

(6.) be careful what you download.

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(3) most OEM computers come with some means of recovery, if it isn't a recovery CD, it's a recovery partition on the hard drive. now there are several ways to bring up this partition that depend on the manufacturer (provided you have one that is) but I can't really help you on how to access it without knowing what type of computer you have. I hear that recovery partitions are so hard to access, that sometimes people even end up messing around with the master boot record to access it, and end up s******g their hard drives. if it's a dell though, then just press ctrl+f11 as soon as you turn your computer on.

Answer 2

Hi,

before you "wipe it clean" please try doing this, download and run CCLeaner this will safely delete all your temp files etc for you then reboot back into safe mode again (press F8 as it boots up) and defrag your hard drive, i think your system is full of rubbish and just needs a good cleanup so windows can then work correctly again. hope this helps you (and get me the 10 points please).

link   http://www.ccleaner.com/