Need Help with My Notebook [Archive]

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Enderet

09-09-2003, 03:34 PM

Well I finaly sold my notebook, http://enderet.tripod.com

and I am supposed to ship it to the buyer pretty soon. My main concern is, how do i delete everything that is on the notebook. How do i get it back to "factory" condition(fresh). I thought maybe you guys could help me out a little.

Also, I am going to be shipping it to Canada, anything I should know about? 8)

rhmorrison

09-09-2003, 04:02 PM

Most laptops come with a RESTORE CD instead of an original XP Pro/Home CD from Microsoft. If this is the case then all you have to do is boot the CD and he will take care of the rest. If asked tell it to format the hard drive. Both of my laptops worked this way, the old one that I no longer have for Win 98, the current one with Win XP Home. BOTH have a bootable restore CD that puts the laptop back into it's orginal AS SOLD condition.

If instead you have a 'real' Windows XP Home CD from Microsoft then BOOT using the CD, format the HD and reinstall...

bdeli

09-09-2003, 04:06 PM

Best way is to reformat the hard drive. If you still have the restore cd's that came with the laptop you can use them - make sure you select full restore which will wipe out the hard drives clean and get the laptop back to the orignal state of when you had purchased it.

If you do not have these and are not going to send the os pre-installed, a windows 98 boot disk will do the trick. Insert the disk, reboot the machine and format the hard drive. You can run "sys a: c:" after formatting so that when laptop boots up you can will see the win98 logo screen instead of no OS has been found error.

As for shipping the stuff to Canada make sure that your buyer knows that he will have to pay customs + brokerage fees on the laptop. And get insurance + tracking number on the shipment.

Mike Temporale

09-09-2003, 04:57 PM

As for shipping the stuff to Canada make sure that your buyer knows that he will have to pay customs + brokerage fees on the laptop. And get insurance + tracking number on the shipment.

If you ship it as used merchandise, and mark it as a gift it should help reduce the customs fees.

Dave Beauvais

09-09-2003, 05:06 PM

If you can't find the OS install or recovery CD and you're extra paranoid about making the data unrecoverable, try running Autoclave v0.3 (http://staff.washington.edu/jdlarios/autoclave/index.html) from a bootable diskette. It may take a while, but any data currently on the drive should be impossible to recover. (Depending on the options you choose, of course.)

--Dave

Steven Cedrone

09-09-2003, 05:31 PM

Insert the disk, reboot the machine and format the hard drive. You can run "sys a: c:"

If you use this method, I would Fdisk first, then format...

After reboot, at the A> prompt, you just need "sys c:" (without the quotes)...

Steve

bdeli

09-09-2003, 09:10 PM

Janak Parekh

09-09-2003, 10:10 PM

Even simpler, a "format c: /s" will do the trick. ;)

--janak

Enderet

09-09-2003, 10:15 PM

8O

Wow, thanks guys. I made that message before going off to work, and right now that I got back, I was surprised to see so many replies. Thanks a lot.

The notebook comes with a recovery DVD and also with a win XP disc. I guess i am going to go ahead with the recovery dvd and hopefuly that will solve everything.