loading OS onto a PC that has been wiped

chaucer

I am selling an old PC - I am going to wipe the HD first and want to know ...

does a recovery disc actually contain Windows XP - the OS for a PC whose hard drive I want to wipe using DNAB, for example, and would inserting recovery disc automatically load XP onto the computer again?

Also, would all the updates (service packs etc) need downloading again?

I could leave it for the new owner to do but my conscience tells me to pass it on in fully operational.

busbyam

ummm, it depends on the manufacture and the age. Most OEM Pc either come with a recover disk or a recovery partition. For example, newer DELL Pc's come with a recovery partition and give you the option to boot into it at startup but and evesham or advent pc are still shipped with a recovery PC.

As for the updates, well it depends on the age of the recovery program, you will certainly have do download some of the updates but the really big update SP2 (around 300MB), the rest are only small and not really problem

LuciferTDark

Did you know you can order a Windows XP SP2 cd from Microsoft for free? It did take a few weeks to arrive for me but it's worth it if your internet speed isn't up to much.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/sp2/cdorder/en_us/default.mspx

chaucer

busbyam wrote: »

ummm, it depends on the manufacture and the age.

MESH


about 5 years old

busbyam

from memory, MESH computers your either need to press F10 during startup to get the computer to boot into the recovery console or I think that 5 years ago they were shipped with a Floppy Disk and a CD. You and to put both in a turn on the computer and the flopy Disk would cause the computer to boot from the CD and perform the reinstall.

I just read you original post again. To answer you question excatly. A recovery CD is a mirrored image of you computer in its' manaufactured format. Running a recovery CD will copy the image bit for bit on to the computers hard drive. This puts the OS back on the PC.

Cerro

Yes you will need to download all the windows security updates and service packs - again.

You can create your own XP CD with all the updates and other drivers required on it - called Slipsteaming (Search for "Slipsteam XP" if you want to discover how). I use this because I don't want to download the updates everytime clear my hard disks and because my computer is newer than XP, it requires certain drivers to even get through the XP install. So its handy to have an up to date copy kicking about!