Return to factory settings

[leprechaun]

Hi guys and a happy new year

I need to return my acer aspire 5100 running vista home P. To factory settings I don't have a boot disk, I know this will erase every thing but all I use this laptop for is to down load and play on my TV. So nothing on it important or that I cant find again.

Restore just isn't cutting it

Can anyone help please ?

Thank you in advance.

[xje4bv]

First of all, why would you want to restore to factory settings? Any specific problems?

[heart reaper]

Your laptop should have some with a recovery disk. Use that to re-install windows.

[LCaveman]

Hi, for what i understand you want to make your computer to the way it was when u bought it, you don't mention if there's a problem with it or not, but whatever the case may be, many computers come with recovery disk's that will reformat your computer to the way it was when u bought it , you do mention u don't have a boot cd so i'm guessing you mean you don't have the recovery disk's, in that case as far as i know most computers if not all have a second partition u can find when u click on "my computer" which contains your recovery files, you access it by pressing whatever key at bootup your system requires you to, it varies from computer to computer,take a close look at bootup it should say something like "Press (f2 to enter Setup),(f9 to change boot order) etc. ,the one u want to look for is the one that says Press (whatever key) to run (Recovery Console), or something of that sort, and fallow the instructions from there.
I hope this was the information you were looking for, and if it was, i hope i was clear enough on how to do it

[leprechaun]

Thanks for this info...
My trouble started a few days ago when I booted up it crashed to blue screen and switched off, this was constant. So I added the only disk I have for the machine thinking it was a boot/recovery disk. Not to be it was an Update disk which then reinstalled windows. where now I have a windows folder and a windows.old folder, my hard disk is crammed full and I can down load little more than 5/6gig. then to top it all B.Gates n his crew now are asking me for a product key to which I dont have.
Restore is just going to most recent back up ie when I reinstalled windows (new) recover flashes up on the screen then of I think in conflict with its split personialty.
Uninstall wont reconise windows old or new, to do so.

So The plan is to return to the virgin state unless a better idea comes along.

[heart reaper]

You can delete the windows.old folder. there is no harm in doing so.

Did you get vista pre-installed on your box? if so, chk if your box has the M/S sticker containing the product key anywhere on the box. below, sideways, top, back.

If no, ask the shop from where you bought your box, to give you the key.

[brayden]

Or there are some alternatives to going to the shop, If you want i'll PM you some nice little stuff that helped utkarsh with windows vista.

[heart reaper]

I too can do that, but i thought, this guy might not come back to the forum if we give him all he wants.

I remember giving a key to some guy, he never turned back to the forum again.

[brayden]

yeah and most of the people who get the webroot spysweeper key don't come back.

[Raymond]

You'll somehow be blessed by giving and helping someone without expecting something in return.