Laptop Wipeout

[tantone]

I have an Compaq 1070 laptop that has it's fair share of little quirks. I adopted it from another user who adopted it from yet another user. It's full of **** programs and an old Win95 operating system.

Here's what I want to do:
I want to wipe out the hard drive and give it a fresh clean start. I understand that the best way to do this is to F-disk it, partition it, then load up what I need to. Does anyone have any recommendations or suggestions before I wipe this thing out completely? Thanks!!!!

[Target]

Make sure in advance that you have all of the appropriate hardware drivers for whatever OS you decide to install, back up any important information or programs that you cannot afford to lose, and then go for it

[tcn]

When you are reinstalling after the reformat, don't install everything! Install them as you use them. This way you don't clutter up the hard drive with things that you hardly use.

[NavyDood_ F/A18_Mech]

Hope I don't confuse you.

I formatted my HP 2000CT laptop I got about 2 weeks ago. I opted to start fresh also, so there would be no HP **** at all in the OS.

I used my normal setup disk for my regular PC, formatted the c: drive and installed win98 on it. Win98 found all the drivers that the HP laptop needed. Only one it didn't find is the Intel Lan/56k modem. But i had the drivers for that. Just don't forget.... When it starts installing windows, click on the LapTop option. It won't clutter the system up with junk.

Jim

[Butchk]

Doesn't Compaq put some of the Bios on the hard drive? I thought I read that somewhere.

[wyvrn]

Unless you have a Compaq in which everything is proprietary... I just ran msinfo and disabled all the compaq **** that loaded on startup as well as using add/remove to get rid of all the useless software. This is not completely OEM free, but it is close and does not run the risk of not having the correct proprietary drivers. If ya gots the drivers, go for it.

[psyklone]

yup, the very first thing that you want to look for is check FDISK for two partitions, one will be a PRIDOS partition and another will possibly be a NON-DOS partition of about 8Mb or so. If you see that small NON-DOS partition leave it alone, that's the BIOS on the hard drive. you can delete and recreate the PRI-DOS partition that should do the trick.

[NavyDood_ F/A18_Mech]

Hmmmm yes it be me again. Sorry if I am confusing you TanTone

Mine had a Hibernation Non-Dos partition that HP said should be the same size as, what amount of RAM is on the system. I deleted it and the c: pri-dos, restarted with a boot disk, made a Pri-Dos partition only, formatted c:, and then went on with my normal install of Win98 without any of the HP software. My laptop runs fine. It didn't care one way or the other.

Jim

[This message has been edited by NavyDood_ F/A18_Mech (edited 02-08-2000).]