Reformatting hard drive/XP reinstal

inmypocketnottheirs

Hi there!

I have a second laptop that keeps crashing and is generally unreliable and a pain in the @rse.

I am considering either reformatting or re-installing xp. It is an Acer Travelmate 240. I have the original Acer recovery CD's. Are these enough to reformat or reinstal XP? If they are not, is it just a case of whacking in an XP disc and rebooting to reinstal from the CD rom?

Any help or advice gladly received.

Thank you in advance :beer:

P.S. Have run AVG anti virus, Registry Mechanic and Ad-Aware SE without any change in performance.

Chippy_Minton

The recovery CDs will return the machine to the state it was in when it left the factory and when you switch it on for the first time it should prompt you to set up Windows accounts.

You could reformat and reinstall using an XP CD, however that won't install any of the Acer tools specific to the machine - things like touch pad, power saving etc.

inmypocketnottheirs

Chippy_Minton wrote: »

The recovery CDs will return the machine to the state it was in when it left the factory and when you switch it on for the first time it should prompt you to set up Windows accounts.

You could reformat and reinstall using an XP CD, however that won't install any of the Acer tools specific to the machine - things like touch pad, power saving etc.

Many thanks. When I reboot with the recovery cd's nothing happens! Just tried it, should I be hitting an Fn key whilst it is booting up?

Chippy_Minton

Yes, you need to enter the BIOS - see http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000192.htm - and set the CD drive as the first boot device.