How to format new Asus laptop?

Richeh · 8 Dec 2009 at 13:48

I have had an Asus laptop delivered today preinstalled with Vista 32bit, I have a copy of Vista 64 which I want to install. I want to completely format the drive but am having nothing but trouble, the recovery disk just installs all of the Asus bloatware etc

When I boot from the Windows disk it only gives me the option 'Install Windows' and if I select that comes up saying that its not the right recovery disk.

Can anyone please tell me how to absolutely wipe the hard drive so I can install my version.

Cheers.

marc69 · 8 Dec 2009 at 14:06

Just run your Vista 64 disc from boot (tell the bios to boot from the CD) and then just run the setup, it should give you an option to format after that because as far as I know, you can't "upgrade / update" from 32bit to 64bit without a clean install.

I just re-read your post, my bad.

Do you have a Windows XP disc about? You might be able to use the setup on that to format the drive and the once it's formatted use your vista disc.

Or use the recovery console in Windows XP to try to format the drive you know "Format c:".

Richeh · 8 Dec 2009 at 14:12

Thats the problem there is no setup option, have set it to boot from CD but just comes with 'Install' and in the bottom left Repair. But no option for fresh install.

edit: You ninja

marc69 · 8 Dec 2009 at 14:32

Richeh said:
Thats the problem there is no setup option, have set it to boot from CD but just comes with 'Install' and in the bottom left Repair. But no option for fresh install.

edit: You ninja

lol

Another thing you could try to do is access the recovery partition on the hard drive, apparently laptop manufacturers put all the tools on a "partition". To access them, I think you hit F9 during the boot up stage, maybe you can format from there if the above doesn't work.

The key differs on manufactures so it might not be F9 (should be for asus) but if you post up the model I'm sure we can find it

Good luck

Richeh · 8 Dec 2009 at 14:59

Well so far i've deleted the manufacturers partion but I did that from inside Windows, thinking that was preventing me. However, I boot from my Vista disk and if I click install Vista it comes up saying unable to locate driver? What driver!!! Is there a way to get into command prompt during bootup. 'Format C:' never did me any harm

marc69 · 8 Dec 2009 at 17:37

Do you not have a windows XP disc at hand or another system that you can create a floppy boot disc off?

You could try to create a bootable floppy and then from there format c: and then try to install your version of vista.

Not really sure what it's talking about when it's saying unable to locate driver, is that exactly what it says?