computer help needed

Boiler · **Posted:** Sat Oct 24, 2009 11:09 pm

The time has come to take my wife's computer back to a fresh install. I want to write zero's to the hard drive and start over. Here is what I've done to prepare so far:

1) made a boot disk with gwscan for writing zeros
2) copied my outlook .pst files and her outlook express .dbx files to a flash drive
3) Saved my internet favorites to a flash drive
4) Saved all files and pictures to a flash drive
5) backed up all her drivers to a flash drive

Is there anything else I should do before I take the plunge?

Budke · **Posted:** Sat Oct 24, 2009 11:24 pm

Save your secret hidden files on a sperate flasdrive. :wink:

Boiler · **Posted:** Sat Oct 24, 2009 11:28 pm

Budke wrote:

Save your secret hidden files on a sperate flasdrive. :wink:

I'll just have your mom send them to me again when I'm done. :twisted:

Budke · **Posted:** Sat Oct 24, 2009 11:35 pm

Ohh snapp...

Boiler · **Posted:** Sat Oct 24, 2009 11:41 pm

durangotang · **Posted:** Sat Oct 24, 2009 11:58 pm

Don't forget to cc me.... I lost my copies :lol:

oddball · **Posted:** Sun Oct 25, 2009 12:17 am

Boiler wrote:

The time has come to take my wife's computer back to a fresh install. I want to write zero's to the hard drive and start over. Here is what I've done to prepare so far:

1) made a boot disk with gwscan for writing zeros

Is there anything else I should do before I take the plunge?

Next time, buy a Mac - OS X writes to U.S. military / gov't security standards.

Razzing aside - you should be golden now.

Boiler wrote:

Budke wrote:

Save your secret hidden files on a sperate flasdrive. :wink:

I'll just have your mom send them to me again when I'm done. :twisted:

Boiler · **Posted:** Sun Oct 25, 2009 12:22 am

Yesterday my wife's PC went haywire. Can't use mcaffee, internet explorer, email programs, her tax software, and various other things. And it locks up after not much usage. I can copy files thankfully.

oddball · **Posted:** Sun Oct 25, 2009 12:27 am

Have you considered installing a new HD?

Boiler · **Posted:** Sun Oct 25, 2009 12:48 am

Haven't thought about it. I was planning on starting fresh and then if there was a problem I'd look at what needed to be replaced.

We're not very demanding with her computer. We just use it for internet, email, tax, and photos mainly.

Mine is typically off of the web and used only for CAD & business purposes.

rt_power · **Posted:** Sun Oct 25, 2009 12:53 pm

why not just partition the hard drive. i have mine set up like this so when i get a "virus" ill have to do is save my bookmarks etc and put on the new copy of windows. works great, and you don't have to worrie about the wife catching ya with a 50 cds of of top secret files :oops:

lil black liberty · **Posted:** Sun Oct 25, 2009 1:32 pm

1st off get rid of Mcafee it's terrible on a computer.. it eats ram like it's brunch.. you should chose a better alternative.. CA-Antivirus is in my opinion by far the best out of the bunch and it only uses a little ram compared to Mcafee and Avast and others out there.. Especially Norton, Norton will destroy a computer fast..

Boiler it's probably locking up due to lack of ram, if it was me I would go an virtualize your ram.. Actually back track that statement what I would do is when you Reinstall Windows make two partitions.. Make Partition C: for your storage and stuff and make D: for your actual windows installation.. it will make things run much more smooth as Windows won't be required to constantly search and run and look for things in the Virtual Partition.. I did this on my Vista and boy with 8 gigs of ram and a Virtualized OS she runs quite a bit faster.. Now if only I could over clock my Quad Core AMD to 4.5GHZ a core... we would be all set!

Boiler · **Posted:** Sun Oct 25, 2009 2:25 pm

according to my task manager nothing is running to speak of when it locked up. It was fine last week, I did some maintenance and cleaned out the tower and it was running like a top, but then BAM it was messed up.

I reformatted last night and I'm reloading everyting now.

tomsjeep · **Posted:** Mon Oct 26, 2009 8:42 am

Hard drives are cheaper than RAM, and easier to install (less safety precautions required). Windows has a bad habit of conflicting with anything that wants to use swap drive space... having a second physical drive means that you can have ample swap drive space, data files in one location, programs in another, etc.
It's a tactic I use on my workstation, and works very well. More RAM will also speed your machine up a bit, although it's often not as cheap as hard drives.
And almost all the friggin' anti-virus software out there is spyware of its own sort. McAffee wants to seek out and destroy other people's software, Norton the same.
The only reliable McAffee program out there is the Enterprise version. Works well and stays quietly in the background unless something happens.

TAHOE · **Posted:** Mon Oct 26, 2009 8:45 am

man, wished I was computer literate, I have so much that needs cleaned up on my two pc's but have no idea how. Good luck Boiler on saving it.

mikey1273 · **Posted:** Thu Oct 29, 2009 7:32 pm

I am a computer Tech. I don't think you missed backing up anything if you got favs, documents, pics, and music along with drivers. you may want to see if there are newer drivers out there on the manufactures web site for that pc.

What version of windows is it?
windows XP runs best with a Gig of RAM if you can put that in. anything over 1.5 to 2 GB is usualy not going to make XP that much faster.

If its vista then 2 GB of RAm is a good place to start. if your version of vista is 32 bit then you can not address anything much over 3Gb, so don't bother with 6 or 8 GB like someone here said they have unless you have a 64 bit OS

partitioning the hard drive and putting your files in one and OS on another is a good idea, even better is 2 hard drives...... I do this.

for antivirus software there are Free ones or you can buy one. I don't like MacAfee and we have that at work. Norton is ok but not cheap and I don't like the systemworks suite that often comes with it, I have seen that mess up computers. If you want a Free anti-virus try Avira or AVG. Trend micro makes an anti virus soft ware I think is decent.

If you think you may have a hard drive problem there is software to test hard drives. every company that makes drives has a diagnostic tool that you can download for free and will make a bootable CD or floppy that will test your drive. Seagte's software can preform genric tests on any brand hard drive.

when you install windows don't use the quick format feature. I have seen that cause problems.

once you have windows installed use KISS.... keep things simple. no stupid programs to change your wallpaper no weather bug and thing like that, those things are an opn invtation to get spyware. ..... keep start up programs limited to things you use very often or need.

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