Formatting and starting again!

times_champion · 16 Aug 2009 at 20:54

I have owned my PC for about 3.5 years now and the Hard drive is full or crap and half-installed programs etc. I am planning an upgrade soon, changing mobo, processer, memory and graphics card, but im keeping my hard drive, moving my movie files etc to an external drive and using the main one only for windows and gaming.

Due to the above I really want to format my drive and start from scratch, the problem being that my PC came from Dell, and has no windows XP disk. Due to this what are my options if I want to re-format? Do I have to get another copy of windows or is there some other way around it? Is it possible to re-format everything on the drive except XP?

Biohazard · 16 Aug 2009 at 21:03

You will probably need to buy an OS.

theheyes · 16 Aug 2009 at 21:09

If you have a key affixed to your machine and leave the hardware alone you'll just need to get your hands on an OEM disc to format the machine.

If you replace pretty much every component bar the hard disk then it's a completely different PC and you'll need to buy a new copy.

Daegan · 16 Aug 2009 at 21:12

If you don't have access to an OEM disk try contacting Dell and see if they can supply you with a replacement.

biron_w · 16 Aug 2009 at 23:38

Even if you replace pretty much every part you can still use the same key.Windows just asks a few questions about how many PC's that copy of windows is on etc.
I changed all my parts on my PC and re-installed the copy of vista i'd been using previously.

Ev0 · 17 Aug 2009 at 09:21

biron_w said:
Even if you replace pretty much every part you can still use the same key.Windows just asks a few questions about how many PC's that copy of windows is on etc.
I changed all my parts on my PC and re-installed the copy of vista i'd been using previously.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should

Yes you can, however it probably means you've violated the license agreement on your OEM copy that was originally installed.

Hodders · 17 Aug 2009 at 10:31

There may also be a 'system rebuild disk' utility that will create a disk for you that will put your PC back to the way it was when it turned up (full of Dell bloat).

Failing that I have a load of Dell OEM XP home/pro install disks that came with some PCs in the past - is it illegal for me to give someone a copy ?

Guest2 · 17 Aug 2009 at 10:59

as already said - a dell rebuild disk or buy a new OS

Cant you just remove as much rubbish as possible using CCcleaner, Ad-aware and hi-jack this. Also use diskkeeper for defrag. I got my processors down from 55 to 30 removing unused programs and services

bledd · 17 Aug 2009 at 11:10

honestly, buy a new hard drive

the WD Blue or Black range for example, they're sooo much faster than drives from even 2 years ago

it would be like buying a Ferarri and putting a Fiesta engine in it.