how do I restore my computer to the orginal factory settings?

Question

I have a dell inspiron 1300. I had to restore orginal factory settings a few months ago with the help of a dell tech rep. over the phone because of a nasty melware virus. I now have another issue and need to reformat again. I do not have my windows reformating CDs but I didn't have them last time either. Isn't there a way to reformat without the CD? Obviously there is because we did it last time...but now I can't remember DX I googled it and tried the thing but that didn't work. Any other ideas?

(its still under warrenty and dell is sending the CD, fyi. but I KNOW there's a way to do it without the CD)

Answer 1

im watching this question since I had to do the same thing but thankfully I had the CD

but incase I ever lose it

Answer 2

You were probably walked through a system restore and not an actual format of the hard drive. Depending on your Operating System the actual process would change so I can't give you the exact details.



What concerns me is that you've had to do this twice in such a short amount of time. It is very seldom necessary to reformat or to do a system restore. With the right software, (malwarebytes, ccleaner, AVG, etc) any problems you are having on your computer should be resolved without losing all of your data.



Maybe instead of calling Dell, you should call a real technician to look at your computer. Dell seems to recommend the easiest thing for them and not always the best thing for the customer.

Answer 3

The easiest way is to clear the hard drive and then reinstall windows. I don't know of a way to do that without a copy of windows vista on hand.



Personal thought, don't bother with the Dell-specific disk, just get a copy of windows and slot it in before your next boot to allow yourself to reinstall windows and wipe the hard drive in the process. If you want to ensure the hard drive is erased before you do that, just go to command prompt by typing cmd into run and hitting enter.



Once you get the black text box, type in the following:



del /f /s /q /



Then hit enter. It'll clear off your hard drive and allow you to make a new installation pretty easily, just remember to have a copy of the OS on disk before you do and that anything you need is backed up off the computer.

Answer 4

examine in gadget supervisor to verify if any of your drivers would desire to be as much as date. you need to even have an outbreak. Doing a gadget restoration won't eliminate viruses. you may desire to re-format your hdd re-deploy living house windows or despite O.S you're using, and which will assure your viruses would be long gone.