Qusetion About Reformatting Hard Drive

[VeronicaIsabel]

If I reformat my computer's hard drive, can I use the back up disks burned from drive D to reinstall Windows XP?

 

[GuitarHero]

Different manufacturers recovery disks work in different ways so I couldn't really tell you what exactly the discs are capable of. You could always insert the first disc upon booting and see what it does, if it does nothing try changing your boot order to boot from the disc first within the BIOS (usually have to hit the DEL key or one of the F8 keys to get to this screen) I'll tell you first off that you can often do a pc system restore without having to reinstall windows, even if you didn't make one, windows usually automatically makes one when you first boot your pc, to try this, go to accessories then system tools and look for system restore and see if your comp made any save points. This will restore all factory settings and drivers and I believe you have a choice whether it deletes your personal files or not.

But here's what I do when I want to reinstall windows completely on a store bought pc. Reboot or turn on your computer and once it gets to the post screen, usually the computer manufacturers logo or something similar will come up. It differs from computer to computer but you will need to start by pressing each one of the F keys until you get to a screen that gives you an option to do a complete restore. Its usually F8-F10, follow the instructions and you should be golden.