Hey guys,

I thinking of reinstalling XP on my Laptop. Its full of junk and i have had a few malwares and spywares i just feel like starting fresh. Just wondering whats the best way to go about this. My laptop has a partition on the Hard drive, about 2GB reserved for XP and the other factory programs i guess. I have made a "recovery CD" of it using a program within XP. My question is, is it ok to reinstall from the partition? or is it better just to wipe everything and use the CD? Also i dont have the manuals and stuff that came with my PC (well i do but i cant get to them... im overseas) will i require a code or some registration key when i reinstall XP.

thanks for any help.

Ryan

make and model of laptop?

It sounds like you have an HP with that ability to make a recovery disk from the start menu

Is there anything on this machine you wish to keep? Can you back up your data?

if it is an hp..they also sometimes have th ctrl f11 or f10 (let's just say a function key for now)...that will do a diskless recovery that brings everything back to original standings (assuming you didn't format the recovery partition)

its a TOSHIBA Tecra A2.

Yes it has a partition on the internal hard drive, i also made a recovery DVD aswell. 1 disc has the actual recovery files and the second has apps and drivers. I do have an external HDD to copy across anything i wish to keep. but basically i want to format the internal HDD to have a clean start. Im not sure if it is better to keep the partition or format over it. can you even format the Hard drive but not overwrite the partition?

another concern is when i reinstall XP will it ask for a code? because i dont have these wiith me, and would hate to go through the whole process and not be able to use windows.

cheers

if you use the recovery disk..it shouldn't ask you for the COA...though...if you computer came with windows installed...then the COA may be on a sticker on the bottom of the laptop...and yes..you can format just one partition on the drive without affecting the other partition...but...you should just use the recovery disk..as this will (should) return the system to that date without completely formatting the drive

hey guys,

this is a little offtopic, im not sure if i should start a new thread. But it has to do with reinstalling XP, so here goes...

no idea what happened, but i get this message when i start up windows

ElbyCheck

elbycheck has detected a corrupt filter driver drvmcdb!

will prevent cd-roms to work properly.
Remove corrupt driver from registry?

YES NO


I havent said yes or no yet, as i dont know what will happen or if it is a virus ( i have another thread open under the remove malware forum, which has not been replied to yet). I guess if my cd-rom is not recognised i will have a problem trying to install XP using the recovery DVD's???

anhy idea what i should do???

thanks alot.

Ryan

elby check is a startup entytry for clonecd/clonedvd...it checks for updates.

That is an interesting message and I wonder if it is...honest?

I only ask this because I recently ran across an interesting case where Microsoft's new OneCare identified Magic Jelly Bean keyfinder as a trojan and it is clearly not, though I understand why MS would want you to think that.

Given that, I can also see why MS might not want you copying cd/s dvds...

maybe I am just being paranoid.

something that i have noticed, everytime i restart it is a different corrupt filter driver. so far i have, drvmcdb, sscdbhk5, pxhelp20....i assume i would get more if i keep restarting.

what do you think i should do say yes or no to the message?

if worse comes to worse i could still reinstall from the recovery partition? i mean i was going to use the recovery dvd but if this stuffs up the cd-rom drive....

thanks for the input. really appreciated.

Ryan

it will certainly not hurt to remove it...you can do it manually

You should, however

start> run
cmd
<enter>

chkdsk /r
<enter>

say yes to schedule on reboot

reboot

i think it is resolved now.

the error message was 3 sepearate messages for sscdbhk5, PxHelp20, drvmcdb. I thought it was just a differnet message each time i restarted until i got brave and actually clicked on it, which revealed then next message under it.

so i removed each driver and reinstalled clonedvd. all seems fine now. playing cd and dvd's now.

cheers again.