restoring preinstalled windows xp home edition

[ratman316]

im asking on behalf of my gf her computer has lots of corrupted files and needs to be restored, the system restore points dont work and i think i need to completly reinstall windows xp however as it came preinstalled i dont think it came with a cd rom.

is there a way round this to completly reinstall windows xp factory settings?

any help is much appricated many thanks

[pip22]

Originally Posted by ratman316

im asking on behalf of my gf her computer has lots of corrupted files and needs to be restored, the system restore points dont work and i think i need to completly reinstall windows xp however as it came preinstalled i dont think it came with a cd rom.

is there a way round this to completly reinstall windows xp factory settings?

any help is much appricated many thanks

When a new PC is bought with Windows XP pre-installed, you don't get a 'proper' Microsoft Windows CD (this is to stop people making illegal copies of it) but you should have been supplied with a 'Recovery' disc which resets the PC back to the way it was when you first bought it. This recovery process is started in one of two ways, depending on whether a recovery CD is supplied, or a recovery floppy disk is supplied instead:

1. If a recovery floppy disk is supplied, you boot from that and it then automatically starts the recovery process from a hidden backup of Windows setup files which are on the computer's hard disk.

2. If a recovery CD is supplied (it may actually be 2 CDs) you boot from the first CD which starts the recovery process using setup files from the CD.

If you are sure you don't have these recovery disks, you should contact the PC supplier since he/they are supposed to supply recovery disks with every PC they sell that has xp pre-installed. This obligation forms part of their distribution agreement with Microsoft.

[Miz]

If it's a newer Hewlett Packard or eMachine (and maybe Compaq), the data needed to restore to factory settings are on a hidden partition on the harddrive.

While the machine is booting up, read each screen. On HP's, you should get a screen telling you to press the F10 key. eMachine is similar, although I can't remember which key it tells you to use.

Both HPs and eMachines have software preinstalled that will make recovery/restore CDs. I don't recall the exact name of the program but it's on the Start Menu somewhere. eMachines require six CDs or one DVD. I think HPs require six CDs. Once you get the computer restored to factory settings, before you do anything else, make those recovery disks....someday you'll be glad you took the time.