Formatting my laptop's hard drive which has Vista on it.

[Dragonslayer14]

Okay, I have a ton of crap on my laptop, and I want to know how to format the hard drive so I can get it to run faster and get rid of programs that Vista won't let me uninstall.  I believe I have a recovery disk for it.  Please help!  Also, would it be better for me to install XP on it if possible?  Thanks!

 

[Glitchfinder]

Okay, I have a ton of crap on my laptop, and I want to know how to format the hard drive so I can get it to run faster and get rid of programs that Vista won't let me uninstall.  I believe I have a recovery disk for it.  Please help!  Also, would it be better for me to install XP on it if possible?  Thanks!

Whoa, slow down! First, get your Vista disk, as well as your driver disk. Next, unless you want to spend a long time looking for XP compatible drivers for EVERY piece of hardware on your system, I'd avoid installing XP. Also, have you tried a program like Ccleaner? It's a free piece of software that cleans a computer, as well as allowing you to uninstall programs and fix registry errors. It helpe most of us keep our computers running much faster. Also, what programs are you trying to uninstall? Have they been deleted from the hard drive, and you just can't uninstall the remnants because of that? Or, are they default programs that are part of Vista? Finally, Ccleaner can also edit your startup programs, which can speed up startupo time. (Be careful with this one, you can mess some stuff up that way)

 

[___]

Everything that he said ^

But also, yeah you *can* downgrade to XP, but you should go and check and make sure there's a full set of drivers available for your model and get them downloaded and burned to a disc before you do it.

 

[Dragonslayer14]

Ah, I have not tried that program out yet but I will try it out now.  As for the programs, they are remnants of programs such as .dll's that are making my computer think that the program is still on my computer, not much of a big deal though.  I know, I was putting WAY too many thoughts in one question, I kinda tend to do that alot. :huh:  But there is one more question that I have to ask, but please tell me if I should put this in another thread: I get an error on Vista whenever I try to run RPG Maker XP saying, "RPGXP has stopped working."  Is there any way to get it to work?  My friend installed it on his computer with the same settings and it worked fine, and he has Vista as well.  Thanks again for the info, both of you! ^^

 

[Glitchfinder]

Ah, I have not tried that program out yet but I will try it out now.  As for the programs, they are remnants of programs such as .dll's that are making my computer think that the program is still on my computer, not much of a big deal though.  I know, I was putting WAY too many thoughts in one question, I kinda tend to do that alot. :huh:  But there is one more question that I have to ask, but please tell me if I should put this in another thread: I get an error on Vista whenever I try to run RPG Maker XP saying, "RPGXP has stopped working."  Is there any way to get it to work?  My friend installed it on his computer with the same settings and it worked fine, and he has Vista as well.  Thanks again for the info, both of you! ^^

Actually, go to PC world's website, they have a good article on internet freebies every year that might be of use. I think there was a really good suggestion in the 2008 version of that article related to dll files, but I'm not sure. Also, the 2008 article had a good link to a website with a huge daabase of errors and fixes, you might want to check it out. (I think it was bug.bd or something like that)

 

[psiclone]

Ccleaner also helps clear unused .dll's among other things. Ccleaner is a very very good program. I highly recommend it to people that ask me how they can 'fix' their computer cheaply.

 

[Dragonslayer14]

I just tried it, and you wouldn't believe how much space I cleared up.  1 GB!  All basically temp files, cookies, cache files I believe, ect.  After Christmas, I am probably going to try to find a good deal on an 8 GB or maybe a 16 GB flash drive to put my music, pictures, RMXP stuff, and my downloads on to free up alot of space.  Plus, I will probably try defragmenting my computer before I leave for Kung-Fu tonight and just let it run overnight, since I haven't done that since probably 6+ months ago. :huh:

I looked on how to dual boot my computer with XP and Vista, and I found a site explaining how to do it without a Vista DVD (since my computer did not come with one, Vista being pre-installed), but I need to figure it out so I don't mess anything up, as I am somewhat prone to do. :blush:

 

[Glitchfinder]

I just tried it, and you wouldn't believe how much space I cleared up.  1 GB!  All basically temp files, cookies, cache files I believe, ect.  After Christmas, I am probably going to try to find a good deal on an 8 GB or maybe a 16 GB flash drive to put my music, pictures, RMXP stuff, and my downloads on to free up alot of space.  Plus, I will probably try defragmenting my computer before I leave for Kung-Fu tonight and just let it run overnight, since I haven't done that since probably 6+ months ago. :huh:

I looked on how to dual boot my computer with XP and Vista, and I found a site explaining how to do it without a Vista DVD (since my computer did not come with one, Vista being pre-installed), but I need to figure it out so I don't mess anything up, as I am somewhat prone to do. :blush:

I's recommend going with Sandisk or Lexar for the flash drive, as they are both companies that specialize in removable storage. (Sandisk especially. I mean their name is short for "sans disk", which is basically "without disk" if you don't know your basic Latin) Also, I'd recommend going with a 16 GB flash drive from Buy.com, as they usually have good deals. Finally, external or portable hard drives are usually a much better value, if you are talking about GB per $. (The difference is that "external" hard drives still use a disk, and need to be plugged into a wall as well as a computer, while "portable" hard drives use flash memory (Like a big flash drive), are much more difficult to break, and only need to be plugged into the USB port on a computer.

 

[Dragonslayer14]

Ok, I will check them out.  Plus, I successfully dual booted my laptop and I now have 30 GB of free space on my Vista Hard Drive (I had about 14 GB when I started all this lol) and it's running a hell of a lot faster than before.  Thanks for all the info once again!  I will check out flash drives and the portable hard drives, but I don't need an extremely large amount of space.  Cheers, and Merry Christmas! :thumb:

 

[Glitchfinder]

Ok, I will check them out.  Plus, I successfully dual booted my laptop and I now have 30 GB of free space on my Vista Hard Drive (I had about 14 GB when I started all this lol) and it's running a hell of a lot faster than before.  Thanks for all the info once again!  I will check out flash drives and the portable hard drives, but I don't need an extremely large amount of space.  Cheers, and Merry Christmas! :thumb:

The only reason I recommended portable hard drives is that they are more storage for less money, and a lot of them can fit in most pants pockets.

 

[Dragonslayer14]

Ah, ok.  If I ever need a lot of storage, I will look into one.

 

[___]

Incidentally if you have an old laptop or desktop HDD drive laying around from an old PC you can make your own portable drive, just by an enclosure for it; they tend to run about 30 bucks which beats the hell out of buying a new drive.

 

[Glitchfinder]

Incidentally if you have an old laptop or desktop HDD drive laying around from an old PC you can make your own portable drive, just by an enclosure for it; they tend to run about 30 bucks which beats the hell out of buying a new drive.

Only problem is that they still suffer from what the original drive suffered from: age. They are still much more likely to wear down and die faster than a new drive. It's in the nature of computer parts to have a limited lifespan, no matter what you do to them. That's also why I would never buy a refurbished computer, no matter what kind of warrantly they put on it.

 

[Dragonslayer14]

Well I think I hit the jackpot. Sorry if this counts as necroposting, but I found an awesome deal on a portable hard drive! As you guys know, Circuit City went under, and they had a huge sale on stuff at the very end. I got myself a 250 GB portable hard drive for $55 (regular price $130)!! I thought, holy crap, $55 only!? So I picked it up and it's saved me a ton of room!

Sorry I haven't posted for a while; I've been busy and haven't really remembered to do anything on here lol.