Can I wipe out my laptop and start again without the original disks?

Wipe it really clean? Like erase Windows and everything?

Do you have the original disks that came with the computer? If you boot from a Windows installation disk, then you can reformat (wipe) the disk before you install. That's a nice clean install. If you want to go a step further, you could repartition the drive with fdisk, then format it.

If you're looking to keep windows, but erase all the programs and files, that's more tedious. Open Control Panel, go to Programs & Features. You'll see a list of installed programs. You can double-click on a program to uninstall it.

To get rid of files, I would suggest creating a new User account for yourself, give yourself Administrator permissions, and then delete your friends account. Then you can look in the Users folder, and if you see your friend's account on a folder, delete it.

Google chrome and Internet explorer are applications. They will not get removed unless it is uninstalled properly. I think just the shortcut icons to open that application has been deleted. You can still open the applications from its original location. It will be under program files.

This model is pretty old - enough that Sony no longer supports it. If you don't have the original software repository off the C: drive or the recovery disks that came with the laptop, then you're stuck with buying drivers from 3rd party vendors (I found a few in a quick search). If you have the recovery disks AND a spare 2.5" hard drive (IDE, not SATA), then consider swapping the current drive with the spare one, and running the recovery disks on that 2nd drive. This will wipe out the contents of that drive, but it now holds the original software repository which has all the original drivers. You can make a CD of that driver directory, or pop the 2nd disk into an external USB disk case and use it to load the correct video driver for your original disk. This involves some money (spare hard drive and case) and opening your laptop to swap the internal drive.

Place disk ! into the DVD drive and turn the laptop on. It will boot into recovery mode and just wait for the prompts.
It will restore your laptop to its original state.
Hope that helps.

Hi
Who did the wipe? A professional tech would have made sure that you got your original Acer operating system plus utils and the maintenance section of the hard drive. Take it back and have it done right. If Acer did this then send it back they should know better.

Please resort to your installation discs that came originally with your computer package. Those install discs can be used as recovery discs. Try to do an OS repair install from those discs. If the problem still persists, I would suggest to wipe and format the hard disk and start a clean installation again. I understand your warranty expired but if it was only let's say three days ago, it should still be disputed. If your new installation doesn't work either, then I would suggest you contact your supplier to work out a replacement of your hard disk. Good luck.

Please contact hp on the site www.hp.com, for the Recovery Discs.

To do a system recovery without recovery disks (not all machines can perform this without recovery disks) press the power button and immediately keep tapping the F10 button until you enter the recovery console.

If unsuccessful, you will need to boot using the recovery disks that came with the machine.

1. Place the first disk in the 1st CD tray (some machines may have multiple CD/DVD drives) and start up.
   
2. Start the machine and immediately press ESC button to enter BIOS
3. Select the drive the recovery CD is in
   
4. Press Enter
5. Once the machine boots off the recovery disk it will provide several options
   
6. Press R for a standard recovery
7. Press F for a "destructive" recovery (will wipe out and format hard drive)
8. Press Q to quit

Once you've made your selection, the recovery process will automatically proceed. It may ask for additional recovery disks which have more software.

NOTE: if you are currently able to boot into the machine prior to recovery you should go in and back up any pertinent files. Both recovery options will wipe out personal files.

A link to this information has been provided below. Best of luck.
Greg

HP Recovery

If your laptop will post, meaning you can get to the BIOS, then YES. Re-flash it with the original BIOS, or a newer but proper BIOS. Then all should be OK again.

Hi there,from the sounds of it this lovely little excercise is due to the hard drive failure,either that or no OS - XP disk is dead or damaged.
If you have the original restore disks from the 3680.
You could try reinstall and test from there,If your contents were important then try to remove hdd take to another computer and see if the drive recognises on the other machine,
If it allows access ,copy all your settings and documents straight away because it could die shortly,hopefully not tho....
Once the back up of your docs and settings and hdd back in your computer then use the restore disk to revive your machine,
This process wipes the C Drive and does a complete reinstall of all the required softwares and in the correct order too...
It should take 15-20 min to load onto the machine and about 40 minutes to reinstall all the RESTORE to Factory Defaults Settings.
Just let it do this process from start to finish and it should eject disk when done and reboot by itself.
when it starts up again it will be back to the windows activation screen and the ready to start loading up if your have the original restore disc,
Once your happy with it and its working,

CREATE A RESTORE POINT

How do I create a restore point?
START>ALL PROGRAMS>ACCESSORIES>SYSTEM TOOLS>SYSTEM RESTORE<Select NAME this as

"FRESH INSTALL JAN 2009"

This will help you return to the point when everything was working,
If you should'nt encounter any more problems,

There may be a Hidden Partion on your hard drive that may allow you to restore from that.Then all thats needed doing is the bios settings will need to be changed to select the XP CD on bootup or the hidden partion on bootup then select save and reboot,It should be straight forward from there.

Just about finished,

Dont for get to do your windows updates for SP2 and then turn off the update functions.

And BACK UP the new install to DVD blank so you can restore
any other time you have issues

I hope this helps but that should cover itn for you,
If you need more help please let me know.

Thanks Misterdj