Find your product key. The product key is a character code. It's usually located on a sticker that's on the bottom of the computer laptops , the back of the CPU tower desktops , or inside of the Windows XP box. If you can't find your product key sticker, you can try using ProduKey to retrieve your computer's product key. Click Start. It's a green button in the bottom-left corner of the screen. Click My Computer. This monitor-shaped option is in the upper-right side of the Start window.
Doing so will open the My Computer folder. Enable viewing for hidden files and folders. To do so: [1] X Research source Click the Tools tab in the top-left side of the window. Click Folder Options Click the View tab. Check the "Show hidden files and folders" circle.
Click Apply , then click OK. Double-click Local Disk. If there are multiple Local Disk options, make sure that you double-click the C: drive. Double-click the Windows folder. This will open the Windows folder. Double-click the i folder. You may have to scroll down to find this option.
Find the "winnt Doing so will launch the Windows XP setup process. Wait for the setup window to appear. Depending on how fast your computer is and which programs were open when you double-clicked winnt Once the setup window appears, you may proceed with reinstalling Windows XP. Part 2. This will initiate the setup. Press the "I agree" key. At the bottom of the screen, you'll see a key e.
Press the "Don't Repair" key. You'll see this listed at the bottom of the screen. The "Don't Repair" key is usually Esc. Delete your current XP installation.
Select the NTFS hard drive option using the arrow keys, then press the "Delete" key usually D that's listed at the bottom of the screen. This will indicate to Windows that you want to delete the selected installation. Reformat the machine.
Reinstall Linux from scratch. Reinstall applications from scratch. Recover your data. It offers the option to delete partitions. This has the same effect as formatting in that everything is deleted. I have two computers that were originally running Win 7. One was upgraded to Win 8, then 8. It had only one partition with Win 7.
I used my Requiem Recovery disk up to the option to delete partitions. Once I deleted the extra partition, I closed the recovery disk. Win 8 worked without the extra partition, which I learned contained the information to roll back to Win 7. Win 10 also added this partition, which I deleted the same way. So, Win 10 now has the entire drive as one partition. They were wrong. That only applies to the System Reserved partition, not the Recovery partition.
When I tried to upgrade the other computer, it would not upgrade for some unknown reason. I reloaded Win 7 and finally to Win Checking, I found three partitions — two of which I could not delete. Also, the Win 10 installation was not activated. I again used the Requiem Recovery disk to delete all three partitions and started over.
Win 7 installed using only one partition and was properly registered. It gave me the option to re-install Win 10, which I chose. This time Win 10 installed properly and was activated.
I used Requiem again to remove the unnecessary recovery partition. Now both computers are running activated Win 10 using only one partition. Of course, once each was set up, I made an image of it before adding anything else — and again after everything was re-installed.
Leo, I really appreciate your telling us about Requiem. I use the Free version, which is pretty straight forward with easy to follow instructions. Leo has little or no control over the ads that appear on Ask Leo!. I just said he was the one that let me know about it. He had an article describing how to use the paid version, which was my guide to the free one. Later he gave the same information for another backup program.
Leo does not make recommendations regarding any particular product — he just lets us know about them. That is one thing I appreciate and respect. NOTE: I am not recommending it, either. Just providing information on how it can be used to clean a drive. Team Leo: I tried reverting back to Windows 7 from 10 due to some optional hardware that no longer had drivers.
Since I was well past the thirty-day revert option I decided to delete partitions and reinstall Windows 7 from the DVD. So, I deleted the partitions and did a clean install. Windows went through all the steps of selecting a partition, etc. This was originally a Windows 7 computer.
Any idea what is going on and how I might fix it? This is a UEFI machine, though I have no knowledge of what that really means or if it would affect my Windows installation … which I assume it would not. So, I had a thought almost as soon as I posted my above question. For clarification, I should say that the laptop I am using was a work computer for a company that upgraded.
I received one of the discards. I am wondering if the issue is the fact that the standard Windows 7 installation program does not have the drivers necessary for this machine, which is prompting it to give me the above message.
If so, how do I go about loading in the drivers for a Windows install? Try booting into command line. Of course, first you would need to download the drivers using another computer. Thank you for your detailed response.
I really appreciate the direction you given me. Remove From My Forums. Answered by:. Archived Forums. Sign in to vote. Thursday, June 7, PM. Rugmaster, No problem. Rugmasterstill, Newer Dells come with a utility that uses a hidden partition on the hard disk drive to reimage the user partition in about minutes, which is a lot faster than doing a clean installation from the Dell OS Reinstallation CD.
Dan, Thank you for the information Stephen MS, Happy to share what I can! Dan, Thank you for the information. Write down the version of Windows. C: Press F12 during bootup.
D: Follow onscreen instructions and reload windows. Select a copy option based on your needs and click on Next to continue. Once all the above steps are finished, you can connect the target drive to your Windows PC and set your computer to boot from the drive. Recently, my Windows computer works very slowly. I want to perform a clean reinstallation to speed up my computer. This PC provides a step-by-step guide that helped me reinstall Windows 10 smoothly. Click to tweet. This post walks you through detailed steps based on 2 different cases.
In addition, you can utilize MiniTool Partition Wizard to erase hard drive and reinstall Windows 10 with ease. If you have any questions about this software, you can send us an e-mail via [email protected]. We also appreciate any opinions about this topic in the comment area. Here you need to prepare a password reset disk and follow the steps below to unlock computer without a password. Download Partition Wizard. Summary : How do I wipe my hard drive clean and reinstall Windows?
Note: The first option will remove apps and settings, but keeps your personal files. The second option will remove all of your personal files, apps, and settings and speed more time to complete. Note: Bear in mind that all the data on the USB flash drive will be formatted, so please back up important files in advance. Tip: The higher the wiping level you select, the more time the wiping process will take. Note: Please back up all important data on the hard drive in advance.
Does emptying recycle bin permanently delete files? In theory, you empty the Recycle Bin and the files will be deleted from the hard drive permanently. Does a factory reset delete everything on the computer? The answer depends on which option you select to reset this PC.
When performing a factory reset, you will have 2 options. If you select the Keep my files option, it will remove the apps and settings but keep your personal files. Should I wipe my hard drive before recycling? Yes, it is.
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