Formatting Laptop. Need help!?

Question

i am formatting a new Dell Vostro because of virus. have games like The Sims that i want to save progress on and reload after the format. also need a step by step process on formatting. p.s. i am pretty good w/ computers so i can understand more advanced language or orders.

Answer 1

you cannot.

when you reformat - which I would do too! - you destroy all the registry tags. This is where the game stats are kept.

If you copy the registry, you might just copy the virus too, so the best thing to do, if you really want to reformat, is to just start over.

You can try to run an anti-virus to kill the bug, this would be one way, perhaps not the final/best way to kil the bug, but it is one way.

I reformat all of my computers at least once a year, if only to keep them fresh and fast and remove the bloat.

Answer 2

One thing is that its really highly not recommend to reformat ur hard-drive, its not part of owning a comp. unless the virus totally destroyed ur hard drive DO NOT REFORMAT. it really is uncessary.

Answer 3

First run a few anti-virus programs.  If that doesn't get rid of the virus, check the McAfee (or Trend) site to see if they have a removal tool for that particular virus.

If you have to format, forget saving anything - viruses can corrupt data files too.  Use your restoration partition (boot into it) or an external boot disk (you can't format the active partition) or download a GPartEd image and burn it to a CD (as an image, not as a file) and format the drive.  You'll have to reinstall Windows, so make sure that you have your Windows installation CD and all the drivers you'll need (on a separate CD) before you start (or that your restoration partition can install Windows over an existing installation - call Dell tech support and make sure).  You can download the drivers from Dell's site.

Answer 4

Recovery:

As for recovery you would have to hook up your main hard drive to another computer and salvage all the data you need (The Sims would be in X:\Program Files)

Format:

for the format it I would reccomend Darik's Boot n' Nuke (governments use this) to download it go here:

http://www.dban.org/download

put it on a DVD, CD, USB Stick, or Floppy disk and boot off of it.

hit enter so there is an asterisk next to your hard drive and then hit F10

Give it some time