I recently bought a used laptop from a friend of mine and its riddled with adware and viruses. Instead of going through all of the hubub of cleaning it out manually, I want to completely swipe the disk and restore it to how it was when it was brand new. I know somewhat how to do it on xp, but can someone give me a guide to how to do it on Vista?
I didn’t get any disks with the laptop as it’s rather old (about two years) and my friend couldn’t find any of the original packaging. Is there any other way?
The Vista Installation disk will offer you the option. When you insert the licensed Vista installation disk, it will offer you a Fresh install, or an Upgrade install. Choose the Fresh installation option and allow it to Format the drive using NTFS, and make sure to choose the Quick Format option (saves LOTS of time).
Your Laptop disk will be wiped out and a fresh copy of Vista layed down… NOTE: A laptop will need extra hardware specific drivers! You will need these BEFORE you can make the laptop 100% functional. Go to the manufacturer’s website and download the drivers and then after the clean install, you’ll need the drivers to make the touchpad, video, audio or network cards work.