I wanted to restore my computer back to the day that I bought it: No
programs, no installations, no nothing. System Restore in the control panel
only allows me to restore Windows back to recent days in January, but I want
to start completely fresh.

Can anyone tell me how to clear my hard-drive and restore my computer back
to the day I bought it?

"Shorty824" <Shorty824@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:11B44C3B-1848-4A09-8643-22DA15F43514@microsoft.com...
>I wanted to restore my computer back to the day that I bought it: No
> programs, no installations, no nothing. System Restore in the control
> panel
> only allows me to restore Windows back to recent days in January, but I
> want
> to start completely fresh.
>
> Can anyone tell me how to clear my hard-drive and restore my computer back
> to the day I bought it?


if your computer came with Windows pre-installed then the vendor must, to be
in compliance with the OEM agreement with Microsoft, supply you with a
method of returning your machine to the factory-gate state. Consult your
user manual on how to do this.
If you installed XP yourself, boot from the CD, format your HDD and
re-install Windows.

HTH

Shorty824 wrote:
> I wanted to restore my computer back to the day that I bought it: No
> programs, no installations, no nothing. System Restore in the control panel
> only allows me to restore Windows back to recent days in January, but I want
> to start completely fresh.
>
> Can anyone tell me how to clear my hard-drive and restore my computer back
> to the day I bought it?

Is the computer a brand name such as Dell or HP?

Alias

"Shorty824" wrote:

> I wanted to restore my computer back to the day that I bought it: No
> programs, no installations, no nothing. System Restore in the control panel
> only allows me to restore Windows back to recent days in January, but I want
> to start completely fresh.
>
> Can anyone tell me how to clear my hard-drive and restore my computer back
> to the day I bought it?

If it's XP, look for the word "RECOVER", not restore. Then click on
"advanced" to get the option you want. I just did that yesterday!

Shorty824 wrote:

> I wanted to restore my computer back to the day that I bought it: No
> programs, no installations, no nothing. System Restore in the control
> panel only allows me to restore Windows back to recent days in
> January, but I want to start completely fresh.


System Restore is entirely different, with a completely different function.
It's not just taht it won't go backfar enough.


> Can anyone tell me how to clear my hard-drive and restore my computer
> back to the day I bought it?


That largely depends on whether yours is an OEM copy of Windows that came
with the computer or one that was bought separately.

If yours came with the computer, how to do it depends on the brand, and
sometimes model, of the computer. Consult your system documentation or
contact your vendor to find out how to do it.

But if you have a regular installation CD (not a restoration CD), just boot
from the CD (change the BIOS boot order if necessary to accomplish this) and
follow the prompts for a clean installation (delete the existing partition
by pressing "D" when prompted, then create a new one).

You can find detailed instructions here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

or here http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how...windows_xp.htm

or here http://windowsxp.mvps.org/XPClean.htm

or here http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

"Shorty824" wrote

>I wanted to restore my computer back to the day that I bought it: No
> programs, no installations, no nothing. System Restore in the control
> panel
> only allows me to restore Windows back to recent days in January, but I
> want
> to start completely fresh.
>
> Can anyone tell me how to clear my hard-drive and restore my computer back
> to the day I bought it?

System restore is not designed for what you want. System restore only
monitors the registry and certain system files, and it will only go back up
to a maximum of 90 days, subject to the amount of space allocated to it.
But from a practical point of view SR is only good to go back one week or
two at the most. Otherwise things will be so out of sync it won't work
properly.

To restore the system to the state it was in when you received it entails
doing a clean install of the OS. How that is done depends on your system.
A vendor must provide a means to recover the system and they have three
options:

1. Provide an XP installation CD and a CD with drivers for all the
hardware. If this is the case, see this link for how to do a clean install:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

2. Provide a recovery CD.

3. Provide a hidden partition on the hard drive with an compressed image of
the drive as received from the computer manufacturer.

If what you have is either 2 or 3 consult the documentation that came with
the computer or contact the computer's tech support for information on how
to do the recovery.

--
Rock [MVP - User/Shell]