Project Complete!

I finally finished formatting my hard drive and getting everything back up again. In total, it took about four days (and I didn’t work on it constantly). So here’s the timeline on the project:

09-08-2005 : Continued with some backup, began compressing

files on my hard drive

09-09-2005 : Continued backing up data

09-10-2005 : Downloaded drivers for my computer’s video

adaptor. I already had my network adaptor driver

downloaded, and all the other ones were installed

with windows.

Made sure OS disk was close by, made sure

everything I wanted was backed up.

Formatted hard drive.

Installed Windows Millennium Edition on my

computer.

Installed Antivirus Software, Ad-aware, mIRC, MS

Office 2000.

09-11-2005 : Restored files, created shortcuts to files again

Created System Restore Point

So, in the end:

- Before, my hard drive had 3.3 GB free. Now I am close to 8 GB.

- The virus is gone!

- My computer loading time went from four minutes to close to 30.

But what confuses me is that the network adaptor is loading, but

before I installed it, the computer loaded really slow. Weird.

Less crashes (I think…)

So, to format your hard drive (assuming you don’t have XP/NT/2K/2K3)

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE AN OPERATING SYSTEM AND ALL PROGRAMS YOU WANT BACKED UP!

After everything is backed up, you need an emergency boot disk that loads CDROM (make the emergency boot disk on floppy if you can).

1) Boot to dos with CDROM support.

2) THINK AND MAKE ABSOLUTE SURE THERE IS NOTHING LEFT THAT YOU WANT ON THE HARD DRIVE.

3) Type “format c:”

4) Type “y” and hit enter when the warning appears.

The disk will format and may take a long time. Be patient.

5) After format, insert the operating system CD and follow these

commands: (assuming x: is your cdrom drive, use the correct

letter)

“x:” – the computer will now move the cdrom drive

“setup” – the computer should start the installation

program, if it doesn’t, consult the manual or

run “dir” to find a file that suggests it is a setup

file.

Now, follow the instructions that are on screen. By the way, your mouse probably won’t work, you will need to use the keyboard.

Also, think it through before you do this. You may not end up having to do all this because it is time consuming.