Fully Restart

[rikuken]

How do you fully restart windows, I mean like fully restart like when you first get it.

 

[Yeyinde]

Reformat?

 

[rikuken]

Well I mean starting over.

 

[shadow]

Back everything you need up and make sure you have all your cds (Windows and device drivers). Boot using your Windows CD and follow the instructions on the screen.

If you have a system restore disc that is usually the easiest way.

 

[rikuken]

One of my friends was telling me to do PC Restore but, I don't know how to do it, he said press CTRL when windows is starting up.

Back everything you need up and make sure you have all your cds (Windows and device drivers). Boot using your Windows CD and follow the instructions on the screen.

If you have a system restore disc that is usually the easiest way.

My computer was custom made to play games like mmo's and stuff, will my graphic card be gone if I reformat?

 

[Grathea]

No... a graphics card is a piece of physical hardware. The driver for it will be, but the card itself won't be.

 

[___]

Yeah you will need to reinstall your graphics card driver.  Since you have a custom built pc you need to find out what your current hardware is; it's best to download drivers beforehand, especially your motherboard drivers and your ethernet card driver if it's seperate.

Really it sounds like this is way outside your scope of knowledge, or that of your friend who recommended pressing CTRL to get to "PC Restore" - I can only imagine that was something to do with his own PC, probably a proprietary feature.  It's not that it's hard or that I'm discouraging you from doing it, just make sure you know what you're doing - i.e. completely wiping out everything on your computer, meaning your bookmarks, game saves, documents, pictures, movies, music, etc.  Everything.  Then make sure you know everything you are going to need to get up and running again; for that I'll supply you a list.

• Windows install CD
• Windows Key (It's often the case that custom built pcs run pirate versions of windows, if you are make sure you know it ahead of time and know what you need to do to install it again, which we can't help you with on this forum for legal reasons)
• All Drivers:
• Up-to-date Motherboard drivers
• Up-to-date Ethernet/Wireless/Modem drivers (whichever you have) (!) WITHOUT THESE YOU WILL HAVE NO INTERNET CONNECTION, IF YOU DON'T HAVE A SECOND PC DO NOT PROCEED WITHOUT THEM (!)
• Up-to-date Sound card drivers
• Up-to-date Video Drivers
• Up-to-date Anti-virus software (grab a the latest virus database if you can get it as a seperate download)
• Software (optional, but you're going to want to know how to get all the software you used to have installed again)

Now, process for reinstalling:

• Insert Your Windows disc, unplug your internet cable (important), and restart your computer
• When it says "Press any key to boot from CD" or something similar to that, press any key
• Follow the on-screen instructions and go through the entire windows setup process
• Install your motherboard drivers and reboot
• Install your video drivers and reboot
• Install any other drivers, rebooting when it asks you to
• Install anti-virus (and that database if you got it)
• Plug in your internet cable and go directly to the next step(important, especially if you don't have a router)
• Run anti-virus update if you didn't get that database, then go directly to the next step
• Run all windows updates, keep repeating the process till there are no more updates
• Install your software, games, etc
• Do any setup & personalization you want to do

That's pretty much it.  Expect it to take you all day if you're running Windows XP due to the time it takes to install all those updates, there are faster ways to get them done (or if you're saavy, have them preinstalled on your Windows disc) but I won't burden you with the former and the latter is expert-level to do yourself (lots of fun though), and I can't link to a such a disc because it's against the forum rules (they do exist in droves though).

Mmm.  Parentheses.