Guest Karrde Posted July 21, 2008 Report Share Posted July 21, 2008 Ok. I'm generally good with computers, though I've only had a laptop for about 6 months. Now I've got a problem that I'm fairly certain has no good solution. A coworker is asking me to help one of her friends with her laptop. From the description, the thing seems in bad shape. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. But from the description, it sounds like it needs to be formatted. The wonderful problem is that this person doesn't have the original discs anymore. Fairly certain she's not very comp literate. Anyway, being that laptops can be kind of strange beings, I was wondering if anyone knows of any function within the laptop itself that would effectively revert the comp to factory settings. Data wipe, etc. All I know about it is that it's a Dell. Any thoughts, people? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew55 Posted July 21, 2008 Report Share Posted July 21, 2008 What os are you using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anonymous1986 Posted July 21, 2008 Report Share Posted July 21, 2008 ok my laptop has a function called dell factory restore. You could check if you have it by seeing if you have a drive (usually d) called recovery. However if you choose the factory restore option all data on ur c: drive would be erased and replaced with the stuff you had when you just got the laptop. I just copied from a website how to use the factory restore, i've used it a couple of times myself: As soon as you see the Dell logo at the start keep on hitting the F8 key repeatedly. Do not stop until you see the screen that says "Repair your computer." There will be other options too but chose this option and hit Enter. Next you will see a prompt window giving you options to select the keyboard layout select from the drop-down menu "US/UK or where ever ur from" and click "OK." On the next screen you will be asked to select the user ID and the password of your Windows Vista account. Select your user account, but make sure your user account has administrative functions. Type in your password. If you don't have a password, leave it blank and click "OK." Now you will come to a window with multiple options. Choose the one at the bottom that reads, "Dell Factory Image Restore." If you are unsure at this point whether you want to go ahead and restore your factory settings you may click "Restart" or the "Shut Down" buttons at the bottom of this prompt window. The computer will restart your computer without executing this operation, and you will get your most recent settings back. Otherwise clicking "Dell Factory Image Restore" will generate an operation that will take about 15 minutes to complete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Karrde Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 Thanks for the replies. And I have no idea about the OS. Haven't gotten my hands on the machine yet. Hopefully this will be an easy go. As much as I like my coworker, I don't feel like spending forever fixing a computer that's not mine :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew55 Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 For XP you can try this though, if you do plan to spend the time: http://www.ehow.com/how_6026_format-hard-drive.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Karrde Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 Thanks, though I know how to properly format :) The switch here is the person lost their original discs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Karrde Posted July 24, 2008 Report Share Posted July 24, 2008 Ok, update. Finally got my mits on it, and man is this thing in sad shape. Running XP w/o sp2 even installed. It's a dell latitude D600. This bugger be old. AT the minimum, the DVD drive seems shot. Won't even open and I can't even do it from the command prompt, so I'm thinking it's mechanical. There's some spyware of some kind not showing up in adaware, but I know it's there. Can't get AVG to install, claims it's not a known install of windows. Gonna see if running windows update fixes this. Can't run any online scanners since there's some problem with the Java. Man, I don't know if I can fix this mess. Just seems like it's got too many problems. Was able to get myself an admin account though :) Anyhow. Ranting aside. Looks like I don't have a recovery partition. So aside from updating windows, scrubbing spyware and virus checking.....I don't think there's much more I can do. Without a functional media drive of some sort, I think this guy's proper f*****. Any ideas on further steps I can use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bades Posted July 24, 2008 Report Share Posted July 24, 2008 Just use system restore on XP. There should be a function called system restore on the start menu in XP and that will make everything factory agen. She will have to backup all her files tho, on a seperate machine or hard drive! But honestly, I would tell your coworker to get a new laptop, that one seems in pretty bad shape and not worth fixing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Karrde Posted July 25, 2008 Report Share Posted July 25, 2008 Yeah this thing really isn't worth it. I updated to SP3. Runs a bit slower now but a lot of the weird stuff has gone away. I'm thinking some systems files were messed up. DVD-r is still a no go. I think it's physically wrecked but I'm gonna try to update the drivers and firmware from dell anyway. There's no backup partition so I think there's no way to make it go factory. This thing really just needs replacing. Gets hot as hell, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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