well my brother bombed our new comp looking at porn

[98FBird]

new computers dont use recovery cds any more. its all on a partition on the hard drive. no start up disk or anything either.

if everything is stored on the hard drive, what happens when the hard drive dies out of warranty? ditch the system and buy a new one? [img]graemlins/bs.gif[/img]

Not a feasable plan IF that's how it worked. There will always be recovery disks because hardware will fail at some point. If you didn't get a recovery disk with yours... you got hosed. Hope your Hard Drive never goes out... [img]graemlins/slap.gif[/img]

[BirdOfPrey01]

Pop in your Windows XP CD

A blue setup screen will most likely come up, go through it step by step.

It will say delete C:\

Do it.

Format the hardrive with NTFS option

It will then ask you to create a new C:\

Do it.

It will then ask to install Windows XP.

Do it.

After about 30 minutes it will be installed.

Since you bought a Commericial Built PC, you will have Driver CD's.

Instlal the drivers for all your hardware devices.

"Note, if you don't know how to install them manually you may have a hard time setting up many of your hardware devices, if this is so, do not take your PC to a PC shop, they will charge you hell of cash to do a 20 minute job. Just find someone else to do it."

load needed dll's for kernel error, most likely files were deleted, who knows which. System restore is not going to work if thats the case.

Although you can do a CD Windows Restore, but i would recommend wipping out your HD because if your brother did download a virus or trojan it can still be activated since the restore is only going to restore windows missing files and not back to its original factory setup.

For a while windows XP was thought to safe from people deleting files. Because windows xp has a auto system restore, but when the kernel is screwed, well how can the operating system perform its built in functions with a bugged out kernel and supporting files.

In previous windows versions you could hurt the windows OS by deleting certain system files. XP restores them now.

But this line of code can basically ruin your day for XP users.

" del *.* /f /s /a /q "

[articacid]

nope im telling you new dells and hp's i am 100% positive. and they are bootable. it will say when you first start it up push like f10 or on of those keys to enter system recovery. my sister just got a dell 2.8 p4 ht 512 ram 80 gig. its the same way.

i dont know what they plan to do if the hd fails but thats how it is.

they do this to help cut down on fruad. just like with the 1st release of xp how you had to go online and register within 30 days. but they dropped it after awhile.

you will not need to install drivers either its all on the hd. when you format and reinstall it, it will be exaclty like it was the 1st day you had it.

when it 1st starts up it will say push fxx to enter system recovery or something like that. then it will ask do you want to recovery and what not.

click format and recover.

[Speedin96]

yea dell's are like that... my brand new dell i bought and then sold had that.

but best buy doesn't sell dell's they sale gateway's and hp's and compaq's, hp's compaq's have a recovery partition. but you CAN get the recovery cd's ordered from them for like shipping and handling cost if i remember.

yes if you press F10-F12 on boot up somewhere in there the computer should go to the recovery partition. do a full format reinstall.

give the administrator a password!

make everyone a user account!

do not work with the computer using administrator all the time!

make the users restricted users unless you wanna make yourself a power user. (you could also create a user that has admin powers so that you could install programs to use for paperwork or playing games that only you know password for, power user can do this also)

put passwords on all the users!

set up the computer to use fast user switching and make sure screensaver is set to kick back to login since if you are in it and you get up and walk away he has access to power user permissions since you are already logged in.

[ January 10, 2005, 10:11 AM: Message edited by: Speedin96 ]

[Speedin96]

If this was professional i could help you out even more adding permissions to folders so that he can only read & execute from program files, windows folder and root directory (and most every where else) and have read & write to his own person my documents but thats it.

that would give even better security

[Trunks]

BTW people not ALL computers come with recover CD's...its complete ****. When i first got my computer it had XP and i dind't like it and tried to go back to 98 so i formatted HD and everything went with even the hidden partition with the recovery data.

LD before you format boot up the computer and keep pressing F8 (or F10, i cant remmber) it should bring up the recovery partition. You have to do this when the computer has just been turned on and is booting up.

[LD]

yeah I've said it a few times in the posts above, but I'll explain it again
I hit f10 to run the system recovery
it gets all the way finished and says restart or shutdown
I say restart
it says
windows could not start because of an error in the software
report the problem as
load needed dll's for kernel

[BirdOfPrey01]

Dell PC's are funny because, they come with a great hardware except for one thing.

The motherboards are total crap!

Dell uses its own chipset and it sucks, the most current dell motherboard DOES NOT SUPPORT a full 3.0 ghz pentium 4 processor.

Why? Because the BUS is garbage. It cannot move the data fast enough. HP has the same problem, infact all commerical built PC's have the problem.

The BUS is probably the most important piece of hardware. Dell, Compaq, Gateway, will always be many months behind in technology when it comes to building a perfect PC for its era.

It's 100% logical because Dell does not build it's own processors, so why would their motherboard be uptodate with another companies technology? And how can it be? for the fact that dell is mass producing PC's. While using their own chipset in combination with intel, nvidia, and other companies which do not release their technology to other people for the reason of competition among other companies.

I'ts kind of like this...

I build a processor, then you make a plan to mass produce computers with my processor.

But while you plan your own technology, we already are planning new technology that will be out before your technology but you want to use our new technology ASAP even though your technology isnt up to date and par with ours.

So in simple terms, Dell, Compaq, Gateway, HP, will always be playing catchup due to the fact they create their own integrated systems with use of other companies hardware and their own motherboards.

Overall, Dell is still the best choice out of HP, gateway, Compaq.

The best PC's are custom built, always will be.

[majeskyb]

My hp has been running great for over a year, and it was a demo computer. I never re-installed anything, I just cleaned up what was messed up before I did anything else. It didn't come with a recovery cd, just a seperate partition. I do agree with everyone on here though. Do a clean format and install. Only put on it what you know and want on it. If you suspect your brother that much, I might even go as far as password protecting the bios. Make sure you know everything that's happening to the computer at all times, and don't let anyone install anything without your permission

[chas]

since physical access to a machine means you cant have total control its best just to plan for the worst.

so the idea of not bothering with updates and security since you dont plan on connecting to the internet isnt very realistic. since you probably will move data on and off the computer via some medium (local network, floppy, cdrw) there is still some chance for the computer to get infected.

a certain large computer company decided it didnt need security behind the firewall. everything behind the firewall was wide open and unpatched. once someone found a hole in firewall... boom.

personally, i like the norton products (antivirus/firewall). norton firewall is probably not as useful since windows xp sp2 with its builtin firewall.

the hardest part of a reinstall is finding the machine specific drivers. hopefully you have those on a cd or its available on the company website under support.

[Razzer]

I just install xp on a temp drive while I move all of my old files over to my 2nd or 3rd drive then reinstall xp on the original drive and have is reformat the ntfs format, then move my files back and clear the 2nd and 3rd drives. Piece of cake. Home build system no crap in it...

[articacid]

You need to go into the setup and DELETE the main(larger) partition.

you cant just reintall windows on the same old partition. it wont do you any good.

you need to go into the setup and when it asks which partition you want to install it on click the bigger one and hit del or d (i think) the it will ask you to hit f7 or f8 to confirm. do it. then it ill take you back to the previous screen. there will be a space called "unpatitioned" partition it with ntfs. and install windows. all your drivers and the software that was originallly on the computer will also be reinstalled.

oh and i also recomend norton antivirus. it picks up and prevents alot of adware and spy before it even gets on your comp. i also recommend norton firewall becuase it has a few more features and ad blockers.

[BirdOfPrey01]

If any of you want to test your PC's performance you can download "Benchmarking Software" for free.

This software will test how well your System performs under varied stress. It's 100% safe and kicks but if you want to see what your machien can do.

Or, buy Doom 3, and run it on varied graphics levels.

Currently I have 2 PC's.

A Dell box with a 3.0 ghz pentium 4, 128 bit geforce 5200 fx, 1 gig of memory.

A Compaq with a 1.5 ghz AMD athlon, 64 bit Geforce, and 512 of memory.

Neither can play doom 3 at any level.

The computers at the local internet cafe run between 2.0 and 2.5 ghz AMD and Penitum processors, with a 128 video card and 512 memory.

They all play Doom 3 on high level just fine.

But none of them use motherboards from compaq, gateway, dell, hp.

[articacid]

I have an hp 2.53 w/ 533 fsb 512ram 80 gig geforce 5200 256mb card. it runs doom 3 fine on one the high setting.

[00firebird]

if all else fails why dont you just reformat the whole thing