Restoring Laptop

[eamonhonda]

The laptop i currently use is a 2 and a half year old toshiba running vista, while vista isnt great bla bla it doesnt bother me. The laptop was pretty top of the range at the time and the spec is still decent for today, 4GB ram intel 2.4ghz dual core processor decent hard drive. I have a external harddrive for keeping anything i need to so if i was to restore it would it be as good as when i bought it apart from battery life or whatever? if so how would i go about this?

[Micknail]

You mean if you formatted the HD and did a fresh install of vista?

I'd say yes. maybe an internal clean out for dust/crumbs etc would be good too.

[oleras]

What colour is it ?

[MrsFlushdraw]

The laptop i currently use is a 2 and a half year old toshiba running vista, while vista isnt great bla bla it doesnt bother me. The laptop was pretty top of the range at the time and the spec is still decent for today, 4GB ram intel 2.4ghz dual core processor decent hard drive. I have a external harddrive for keeping anything i need to so if i was to restore it would it be as good as when i bought it apart from battery life or whatever? if so how would i go about this?

I take it Vista is pre-installed into a recovery partition on the laptop and you did not receive a disk?

There is a key combination at boot that you can press to go into the mode to wipe and reload the operating system. It could be F11 or F12 plus fn, ctr or something. Google the question with your laptop details and it should tell you the key then off you go.

It will be back to the factory settings with the original drivers etc.
If I was you I would get onto a USB key whatever virus guard you use and take the laptop off the wireless when you do the re-install as it will be vulnerable.

Once the OS is loaded, stick on the virus program first before you connect to internet and then load back up whatever programs you plan on having.

[oleras]

I take it Vista is pre-installed into a recovery partition on the laptop and you did not receive a disk?

There is a key combination at boot that you can press to go into the mode to wipe and reload the operating system. It could be F11 or F12 plus fn, ctr or something. Google the question with your laptop details and it should tell you the key then off you go.

It will be back to the factory settings with the original drivers etc.
If I was you I would get onto a USB key whatever virus guard you use and take the laptop off the wireless when you do the re-install as it will be vulnerable.

Once the OS is loaded, stick on the virus program first before you connect to internet and then load back up whatever programs you plan on having.

Vunerable to what ?

[eamonhonda]

No I have a disk somewhere I think. I just wanna wipe it clean and only install the bare few programs I use and get rid of the Shite. So will restoring it also format the harddrive too?

[DeadParrot]

Vunerable to what ?

to everything.
He'd be restoring the OS to pre updates, pre service packs with no AV protection.
It's a wild world out there and a laptop exposed to the web for any length of time without any AV/Firewalls is gonna get infected fairly quickly.

As David Perry, global director of education for security software provider Trend Micro, puts it, "an unprotected [Windows] computer will become owned by a bot within 14 minutes."

[eamonhonda]

All I want to do is basically make it exactly the way it was when I got it. Would I be easier to just go delete delete delete, run auslogics defrag, run c cleaner and uninstall the shit out of everything

[D3kka]

If you have a recovery partition then restart laptop, hit F11(if toshiba satellite its 0) on the keyboard repeatedly until the recovery screen pops up. Click on Advanced Options, click System Recovery, then click OK when prompted. The recovery process will begin and take about 25 minutes or soo.

But as been said by MFD an DP, first redownload your antivirus/firewall and save onto USB key before this process, and reinstall after process before going onto internet.

[A_CitizenErased]

All I want to do is basically make it exactly the way it was when I got it. Would I be easier to just go delete delete delete, run auslogics defrag, run c cleaner and uninstall the shit out of everything

IMO that would be your best bet.

Either that, or buy a mac.

[eamonhonda]

If you have a recovery partition then restart laptop, hit F11(if toshiba satellite its 0) on the keyboard repeatedly until the recovery screen pops up. Click on Advanced Options, click System Recovery, then click OK when prompted. The recovery process will begin and take about 25 minutes or soo.

But as been said by MFD an DP, first redownload your antivirus/firewall and save onto USB key before this process, and reinstall after process before going onto internet.

So what exactly will this do? Wipe the harddrive and leave nothing but windows vista the way it was at first?

[D3kka]

So what exactly will this do? Wipe the harddrive and leave nothing but windows vista the way it was at first?

Yip deletes all files and software an reinstalls Vista, drivers an basic programs you had when you bought it.

[eamonhonda]

Yip deletes all files and software an reinstalls Vista, drivers an basic programs you had when you bought it.

great thanks for your help, that and a physical clean out is just what i need

[oleras]

to everything.
He'd be restoring the OS to pre updates, pre service packs with no AV protection.
It's a wild world out there and a laptop exposed to the web for any length of time without any AV/Firewalls is gonna get infected fairly quickly.

You learn something new every day !

I thought someone would have to specifically want to target you.

[D3kka]

physical clean out is just what i need

[eamonhonda]

the laptop needs*

[MrsFlushdraw]

Vunerable to what ?

I was working all day and never got a chance to reply, but I see DP explained what I was going to say anyway.

Here is a bit of what can happen to an unprotected computer...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botnet

[eamonhonda]

Thanks for all the help, im in the process of uninstalling all the shite then im gonna transfer music photos etc to ex-hd then im gonna run c cleaner and the defrag. if that makes a significant improvement ill leave it at that if not ill go with the restore