Wiping my laptop clean?

Question

I'd like to wipe my laptop clean because it's gotten very sluggish over the past few months and I run programs that are pretty high cpu intensive. I got this four years ago through my college and I'm pretty sure I don't have the windows cd anymore. Do I need that cd to do that? I'd like to return the computer to the state in which I received, just the basic windows programs. What's the best way to do this? I don't have a floppy drive and I'm pretty sure the cd-rom doesn't work correctly. Thanks

Answer 1

Favorite Answer

You would need a windows CD, but as long as the licence sticker is still on the bottom of your laptop this shouldn't be a problem.

You may need to beg or borrow an external cd drive.

Try checking your hard disk free space and doing a defrag. If you got free space then clcik the windows update icon on the start menu, I've found updating to SP3 can cure a lot of things.

Also put on a decent freeware antivirus like avg free, nod32 or avira, forget the heavyweights like norton etc, and some anti spyware like Spybot search and destroy or malwarebytes.

Also try a freeware registry cleaner

Hope this helps

Answer 2

i might Take it you have all your back ups. i wish you have all the drivers you decide on for all the stuff ( video,cd,sound card,lan) you have on the pc. the 1st and easiest is to format. then reload all your divers