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| Levels-4-You : Lounge : Formatting advice |
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Beatonator  |
  Posted 1st Sep 2008 12:53am |
Post 2732 / 3716
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Hey guys, Very long time since I have had to format, but my PC is going rather crazy now. It resets itself, it has Stop Errors (Blue Screen), has complained of a Bad Pool Caller amongst other things. I think its time for a Reformat. However here in lies the problem.
My PC was a Custom build, on a website. I picked out the parts, they built it and sent it to me. With Windows XP already installed. I received one of those "Windows XP Systemax Recovery Disk" Or something. Im wondering. will my Recovery disk (It appears to be a fully working copy of Windows XP Home as far as I can tell) reinstall XP fully after I have formatted?
secondly, Can someone remind me of the formatting steps. Last time I did it, I had to stop windows booting and use Commandline commands to format, or some stuff like that. will dig out my XP cd and check to see what it says on it.
I have a VALID license for XP Home  |
Trying to find old players. Anyone about? Drop me a PM or reply to this thread:
>Link< (or head over to RFrun.net's comment section!) |
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| RED-FROG |
Posted 1st Sep 2008 1:02am |  |
L4Y Resident
Post 3643 / 5258
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Hm as far as I know, a recovery disk will not allow you to reinstall XP.
Like the name says, it's only there for recovering.
Systemax? Should be the name of the company that built the PC and sold you the license of XP.
With this CD you can only repair XP, by booting the PC with CD/DVD drive as first boot drive.
However I don't know how far it goes in repairing or if it's worth anything.
I think what you need is a SB (system builder) or OEM version of WindowsXP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovery_disk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_equipment_manufacturer (scroll down - "Operating systems" "Contradictory uses in manufacturing") |
| ¤ MARS WARS 3! - Red Faction revamped on the unreal engine. Superiority ¤ |
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| Beatonator |
Posted 1st Sep 2008 1:16am |
Post 2733 / 3716
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Thanks for quick post Frog much appreciated. i foudn this in the opening Paragraph of the Recovery Wiki...
| Quote | | A recovery disc is a general term for media containing a backup of the original factory condition or favored condition of a computer as configured by an original equipment manufacturer or an end-user. OEM supplied recovery media is commonly shipped with most modern computers to allow the user to reformat the hard drive and reinstall the operating system and pre-loaded software as it was when it was shipped. |
Sounds like I Can format my HDD, it will just give me the default settings. Which, TBH there wasnt much. no pre-installed crap like some others I have seen.
EDIT: I just noticed this right at the bottom of the Recovery Wiki...
| Quote | | In addition, if the hardware configuration of the system changes, drivers and support for the additional hardware changes will not be on the recovery image, requiring users to reinstall their drivers. |
This may be a problem. My Mobo died a few years back, and had to get it replaced with a different model. Windows wouldnt accept it so I did a repair via the windows disk which accepted it. Am I going to have problems if I reformat with a different Mobo? |
Trying to find old players. Anyone about? Drop me a PM or reply to this thread:
>Link< (or head over to RFrun.net's comment section!) |
Modified Sep 1st, 01:21am by Beatonator |
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| Beatonator |
Posted 1st Sep 2008 4:29pm |
Post 2736 / 3716
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^BUMP^
Really important guys, need some serious help here. my Computer seems to be getting steadily worse. Plus I have a horrible feeling I may have a Rootkit or something installed on here. I have the following now:
Windows XP recovery CD
| Quoting Instructions | Welcome to Setup
To setup Windows XP now Press Enter
To repair Windows XP installation using recovery console, Press R
To Quit press F3
'Please press Enter to go to next menu.
'Now you will be presented with R = Repair or [/b]Esc for a fresh installation[/b].
By choosing the Fresh option, this will destroy all data by installing a fresh version of Windows XP |
Sounds good no? If I select fresh, will this format for me? and will it format Both my hard drives? I only want to format C: |
Trying to find old players. Anyone about? Drop me a PM or reply to this thread:
>Link< (or head over to RFrun.net's comment section!) |
Modified Sep 1st, 04:29pm by Beatonator |
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| RED-FROG |
Posted 1st Sep 2008 6:13pm | |
L4Y Resident
Post 3644 / 5258
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omg sorry that noone else replyed.
I don't know enough of recover CDs to help you 
Ok I'd better have said I know nothing about them since I greatly avoided them ever since because of the above questions and problems.  |
| ¤ MARS WARS 3! - Red Faction revamped on the unreal engine. Superiority ¤ |
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| sobe |
Posted 1st Sep 2008 10:24pm |
Post 2881 / 3194
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When you get to that screen Beat, just press Esc and it should come up to a Partitions screen showing the partitions in use and the ability to create new. I recommend you delete the current partition on C: by highlighting it and pressing... I believe L is for delete. Then just select C and it should say create new partition, then you make it NTFS when it asks, and it will then format and install WinXP for you.
Btw, a Recovery Disk from Dell, HP, etc. most tend to be full OEM versions of WindowsXP preloaded with a bit of crap. Kind of like an nLite'd WinXP installer.
Also, if you have a valid license key, you should have the right I believe to simply torrent the Windows XP install disk for the version of serial you have. |
| "Apparently, Plaintiff believes that he could sue an egg company for fraud for labeling a carton of 12 eggs a dozen, because some bakers would view a dozen as including 13 items." - Western Digital 2006 |
Modified Sep 1st, 10:33pm by sobe |
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| Beatonator |
Posted 3rd Sep 2008 2:31pm |
Post 2739 / 3716
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Cheers guys much appreciated your replies. however turns out im too late. My PC keeps rebooting as it tries to load XP. It does same in safe mode. Tried formatting with the disk, when I press Esc, it gives me a stop error about ntfs.sys.
It points to my HDD i reckon, but Assman has a feeling could be PSU. Gonna have to try and switch it out. and test with new PSU. Maybe time for new PC has arrived been putting it off. What would you guys recommend spec wise? aint done hardware for a while.
a friend suggested Quadcore, but another friend said I dont need quad core and am better with a dual-core. Also the new ATI HD DX10 cards were recommended. I want to be able to run:
Starcraft 2
Diablo 3
RF: G
that is all the new stuff I need it to run. It should obviously run my older stuff like WoW and War3.
Any advice would be amazing. |
Trying to find old players. Anyone about? Drop me a PM or reply to this thread:
>Link< (or head over to RFrun.net's comment section!) |
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| RED-FROG |
Posted 3rd Sep 2008 6:41pm | |
L4Y Resident
Post 3660 / 5258
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uhm there we go with the PSU thread again.
LOL
Actually, wouldnt it be a better idea to TEST the HD, before changing the PSU?
Take the HD to a friend and plug it into his PC (as slave or on a new IDE/SATA port)
Run scandisk, and format (long run) again. Backup files if you can.
People should use their HDs in a more mobile way. Just because their are not external ones doesnt mean you cannot simply use them on diff PCs. 
That always is your last resort when it doesn't boot from it anymore. |
| ¤ MARS WARS 3! - Red Faction revamped on the unreal engine. Superiority ¤ |
Modified Sep 3rd, 06:43pm by RED-FROG |
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| Beatonator |
Posted 4th Sep 2008 12:40pm |
Post 2740 / 3716
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Well I wasnt going to buy a new PSU, lol. was gonna test it with a mates If I can find one to participate! LOL! Then try the HDD. Scandisk/Formatting is a good move. May try that method. Cheers frog. |
Trying to find old players. Anyone about? Drop me a PM or reply to this thread:
>Link< (or head over to RFrun.net's comment section!) |
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| sobe |
Posted 4th Sep 2008 9:39pm |
Post 2887 / 3194
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Honestly Im going to say that's an issue with the Hard Drive or Boot Disk....
But yea, definitely test that PSU in another pc if you are able. And if you can get into Window with it get a program called HWMonitor and run it, it will tell you how stable the +12v rail is. If it's below 12.08volts, it means it's failing
And again with the quad vs dual discussion. It's as simple as this, duals are better for gaming, quads are better for if you do work in 3d rendering programs, video encoding, etc.
As just an example, as these 2 are possibly the most of any I've seen compared.
The Core2Duo E8400 overclocked @ 4GHz outperforms the Core2Quad Q6600 @ 3.6GHz
Yes yes you can say it's due to one being clocked higher, but one can run in a more demanding enviroment at lower clock speeds.
It's basically as simple as if you do basic workstation tasks(PhotoShop, etc.) mixed with gaming... Dual core is more than fine for you.
If you find yourself doing encoding work, video editing, audio editing, rendering, modeling, etc. The Quad is a better choice.
As far as the concern on vid cards. The ATi Radeon HD 4850 is possibly the best "bang for buck" card available. However, being ATi and never having anything good happen with ATi, I'd still choose any nVidia card over that, lol. Biased, yes, at least until ATi picks up their support for drivers, etc. |
| "Apparently, Plaintiff believes that he could sue an egg company for fraud for labeling a carton of 12 eggs a dozen, because some bakers would view a dozen as including 13 items." - Western Digital 2006 |
Modified Sep 4th, 09:44pm by sobe |
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| RED-FROG |
Posted 4th Sep 2008 9:54pm | |
L4Y Resident
Post 3669 / 5258
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No, there are simply no games that take of advantage of Quad core yet. (to my knowledge)
Far Cry 2 will be the first game that takes advantages of 2x Quad Core (Octa Core).
So there is absolutely no gaming or video encoding preference. Maybe for now, only because for the fact that quads are kinda usless until December
CPUs won't increase much in clock speeds in the next time, but in cores amount. And each core can help speed up performance, it only depends on the software that is running.
They cannot clock quad cores as much as a single core because of the power draw and caused heat.
But things are not depending on clock times anymore. |
| ¤ MARS WARS 3! - Red Faction revamped on the unreal engine. Superiority ¤ |
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| sobe |
Posted 4th Sep 2008 10:18pm |
Post 2889 / 3194
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Psst, RF, Supreme Commander and Lost Planet both support full native quad core processors. ^.^ |
| "Apparently, Plaintiff believes that he could sue an egg company for fraud for labeling a carton of 12 eggs a dozen, because some bakers would view a dozen as including 13 items." - Western Digital 2006 |
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Lace  |
Posted 5th Sep 2008 4:47am |
Post 1036 / 1216
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Built my new comp:
Asus Rampage Formula X48
Intel Core™ 2 Quad Q9550
Corsair Dominator TWIN2X8500C5DF 4096MB
Corsair Powersupply HK1000W Black
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 "TOXIC Edition" x2 in CrossfireX
16619 3DMarks by default in 3DMark06 |
| A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. |
Modified Sep 5th, 04:50am by Lace |
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NoClanFrank  |
Posted 5th Sep 2008 8:49pm | |
Post 4837 / 5840
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Lace from what Nitro told me, that's still not better than his newly built monster that you made him build. |
| >Click Here< If You Don't Have a Social Life :/ |
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| sobe |
Posted 5th Sep 2008 9:45pm |
Post 2890 / 3194
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| Quoting Lace |
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 "TOXIC Edition" x2 in CrossfireX |
So I take it with those in XFire you are able to cook eggs on top of them? Hell, you may even just be able to use your computer as a heater during the winter if you take off the side of the case =D
Btw Lace, what's the need for a 1,000watt PSU You dont have a system that demands that at all. Your system doesn't even really push the 600 watt mark too far I'd say. You'd be fine with an overclock on a 700-850watt psu. Ah well, everyone is going overkill nowdays, it must be a trend |
| "Apparently, Plaintiff believes that he could sue an egg company for fraud for labeling a carton of 12 eggs a dozen, because some bakers would view a dozen as including 13 items." - Western Digital 2006 |
Modified Sep 5th, 09:50pm by sobe |
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| RED-FROG |
Posted 6th Sep 2008 3:29am | |
L4Y Resident
Post 3683 / 5258
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SLI/Crossfire is the way - not - to go. 
It was a lame junction to multi core GPUs.
First, it's not effective at all, secondly, it's a waste.
I highly doubt in 3DMark06 SLI/crossfire has any impact on the score at all. ( +- 40points maybe)
Try it. |
| ¤ MARS WARS 3! - Red Faction revamped on the unreal engine. Superiority ¤ |
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