Box Fresh

0james0

My PC is now about 12 months old and starting to feel the effects of all the junk it's collected.

If I was to back up everything important, is there a way to make it as good as new again?

The way I see it I have a couple choices, format hard drive and start over or use the HP system recovery tool to restore to factory settings.

My questions:

Any advice before I wipe and start again?

Is it ever possible to get your PC "box fresh" again? Even after formatting etc, will it still always have that used feel to it?


Cheers for your answers

timbim_2

What are the specs at the moment, specifically how much RAM does it have? Is this Vista?

The best plan of action, if you have a big enough external hard drive, would be to back up everything, remembering to take the profile folder from your browser with all your bookmarks etc, and then to be on the safe side take a full disk image, and then reinstall from the original media, not the recovery partition. Doing it that way will hopefully allow you to avoid the problem of having all the default but rubbish default software installed.

0james0

It was shipped with Vista 32 bit and has 2GB of RAM.

My HD is 3/4 full, which I know isn't helping, I'm having a cull tonight.

I'm running a HP Pavillion, 64 X2 Dual core processor 5000+, 2.60Ghz.


It is virus free, although I've had a few in the past and I'm sure they have left their own scars throughout my system. I'm using all the recomended AV's to keep it clean.

I considered more RAM, but I thought it prob needs a complete clean, rather than just adding more memory. -but then I dont actually know what I'm talking about!

timbim_2

No. First step would be to install ccleaner and use that to uninstall programs you no longer use, clean up temporary files and the like, and clean the registry (making sure to back it up first!). Any programs too stuborn for that you should use Revo Uninstaller.

Once you've done that, download and install Hijack This and Malwarebites anti malware, do a full scan with both and post the results here. This will show any unwanted nasties or processes slowing the system down.

tomsutton529

always worth giving tuneup utilities a try as well.

enigma52

you say

I'm using all the recomended AV's to keep it clean.

if you are using more than 1 antivirus programme this is a big problem you should only ever have 1 antivirus programme running at any time. Same with firewalls

0james0

enigma52 wrote: »

you say if you are using more than 1 antivirus programme this is a big problem you should only ever have 1 antivirus programme running at any time. Same with firewalls

Only using one at a time. When I did have a virus I install them, run a scan, then uninstall after. Using just the standard Windows firewall.

Once clean, I'll post the hijack this log on here. Will be later tonight.

Thanks again guys for the help