wipe hard drive

Chuzzle

My son wants to wipe everything off his hard drive and start over again. As its an old pc I have no problem with him doing this.

Main problem is we can't find the windows cd so his question is can he copy the windows folder onto a memory stick, then format the hard drive and then use the memory stick to reload windows?

He's 15 and fairly geeky :-) but has never done this before - he also understands that this is his only pc so if he messes it up then he has to go outside and play instead ;-)

Any helpful ideas/comments would be great please.

Or is there a free program that could do this for him?

closed

no.

if it's branded they often have a means of creating the disk, or a factory restore partition (best and fastest way to do it). The lost disc scenario is fairly common, but presumably it is somewhere in the house?

backup with macrium reflect free and create boot disc before you start, then if anything goes wrong, you can put it back to how it is now and have a copy of all data

Ximian

Short answer: no

Copying the Windows folder will not give you a working installation of Windows. You need a Master Boot record, registry, operating system, drivers and more to have a fully functioning installation.

The best option would be to re-install from original CD/DVD. (and then create a backup - see below)

There are disk imaging programs available that can take an image of your hard drive and you can then restore the image at a later time (as well as take incremental backups). If your son had a working system that he was happy with he could have created an image and restore that working image - this might be an option for the future.

The following applications are free and can clone and restore images:

Macrium Reflect: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
Paragon: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/features.html
Drive Image: http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

bmewsd

as the others have already said, the short answer is no. it's mainly down to the registry which is where all the information needed to start the operating system is basically stored.

your best bet is seeing if you have a factory restore option as part of your system (Dell and some others have these) and this will restore your computer to the exact configuration as when it arrived from the factory.

This is especially helpful if you don't have access to the windows media in order to load the necessary drivers etc.

hope this helps

NiftyDigits

Brand name and model number?

Chuzzle

I don't have a make and model as this was bought from a small independent shop. Where might I find the factory restore setting (although I'm doubtful we have one! How would we create a windows disc?

bmewsd

Chuzzle wrote: »

I don't have a make and model as this was bought from a small independent shop. Where might I find the factory restore setting (although I'm doubtful we have one! How would we create a windows disc?

If you're lucky, press f8 or f12 as the computer starts up. I'm assuming it's a windows PC. that should take you into a menu selection. The option may be in there. If it's not, then give the shop a ring and ask them if it can be done.

The other alternative (again, subject to the age and spec of the system) is to buy a copy of windows 8 upgrade and then you'll have a legit OS (latest version) and a clean install.

hope this helps

closed

There probably isn't one, one of the downside's of independents, so you need to search for the disc (if it came with one). Has it got a windows COA sticker?

Or if it's just slow, follow the speedup sticky.

[Deleted User]

pressing f8 repeatably as soon as you switch on can usually allow a repair or restore from there,or as above it maybe f12