Formatting a Fujitsu Siemens PC. Advice needed

danton

Hello,

My dad's Fujitsu Siemens PC has been giving trouble lately. It powers off randomly and is quite slow on startup. I've tried running the CCcleaner on it as well as anti virus/malware programs. While they have helped in the short term, I would like to format the drive and restore it to factory settings.

I have an external hard drive and will back up all files, etc. I'm just wondering if anyone has any link with instructions on restoring a Fujitsu Siemens PC. It's using a Vista operating system and is about 2 years old. Any advice/help appreciated.

Thanks

danger_mouse_tm

If you can download a program called belarc adviser, Run that and print the result. There you have the keys from any software that's currently installed; vista, office etc. Now go to the fujitsu website and find the downloads page for your computer. All you really need is the network card driver because you are going to want a serious amount of updates from the internet after you do the install. If you burn the network card drive to a cd then you are ready to go.

Done that? restart the computer with the vista CD in it. Make sure no external drives are plugged in (you don't want to blast the wrong disc) Press the "any" key when prompted to boot off the CD/dvd.

Do the most destructive install you can - Ie format the hard drive completely. Follow the prompts put in your key and you are ready to install. If it's an upgrade version of vista then you might want to have your windows xp cd handy to "show" it to the computer just to prove you are upgrading from a previous version of windows.

Get that computer plugged into the internet and start all your software updates - there is going to be lots and lots of them. Don't foget your anti virus program!

danton

Thanks danger_mouse_tm for replying.

I'll have a go at it over the weekend. He bought the pc from a shop in Cork about 2 years ago. I'm not sure if he still has the original Vista CD that he got with the PC. I'll check with him anyway.

If he doesn't have the CD, is it still possible to format the hard drive? I remember a cousin of mine telling me he formatted his Dell PC last year and didn't need the original CDs. He's in Australia now so can't really ask him.

The other option is to contact the shop to see if they will provide CDs (even though it's out of warranty)

Thanks

PapaQuebec

Check the specs etc that came with the PC. If it's fairly new it probably has an "image" of the original factory installation on a hidden partition of the HDD. You can simply do a "re-install" from this!

danger_mouse_tm

How did you get on with this Danton? If you need a disc i can burn you off one here.

danton

Thanks danger mouse but he actually found the original CDs that came with the computer. Everything seems to have gone OK anyway. It did take a while (about 3 hours in fact). I had to ring Fujitsu support and in fairness they were extremely helpful.

The majority of the time was spent trying to get the wireless adapter working after the restore. I had to go onto the website to download a driver. It took a while but eventually we got sorted. I reinstalled Microsoft Office as well so it's more or less brand new again.

I'm calling over there tomorrow to check it out and to see how he's getting on with it.

Thanks again for your help.

danger_mouse_tm

No problem Danton, He will probably still be downloading updates!

Microsoft has a free anti virus called microsoft security essentials.