jamesmark Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 I got a Laptop for my father last year, It is a Phillips X58. I got the laptop cheap as it did not come with a box or manuals so cannot consult them. I need to know how to re format the hard drive as these laptops did not come with recovery disks apparently the recovery disk is part of the hard drive if that makes sense. Anyone had any dealings with them? The laptop has been reformatted before but XP went on it, then Vista went back on as drivers were not available to let it run XP. I have not got the Vista disk I had back then Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robin Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 Is the recovery partition still intact? If not why not just use any old XP setup disk and then download the drivers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesmark Posted April 10, 2008 Author Share Posted April 10, 2008 Is the recovery partition still intact? If not why not just use any old XP setup disk and then download the drivers? How do you check that? My dad is not up on these things (still one finger types lol) I am 220 miles away from him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tDR Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 How do you check that? My dad is not up on these things (still one finger types lol) I am 220 miles away from him. Right click 'My Computer'>Manage then under storage click on 'disk management'. If there's a hidden recovery partition it should show up there as a partition without drive letter (hence it cannot be seen under the my computer drives view). Usually you recover such laptops by going into the bios at startup and setting the boot order to be the recovery partition first. Then follow the instructions. You can also change the boot order in the bios to be the cd/dvd drive as the first in the order meaning if you put an O/S disk in (bootable) that windows setup will run. That's how you would do it without any recovery disks - as mentioned you then need to download and install any drivers the O/S disk didn't include once you're back at a windows desktop. This is done by looking in device manager to work out what is what and downloading from manufacturer websites. If no network connectivity to visit said websites you'll need to get the network / wireless driver first on another pc then use a usb key or similar to put it on the laptop you're working on. HTH, Brian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesmark Posted April 10, 2008 Author Share Posted April 10, 2008 I will give it a go with him after a few lagers to chill my nerves. lol Cheers Robin/Brian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 I will give it a go with him after a few lagers to chill my nerves. lol I have to do that with my mum!! She phoned me the other day to ask how to make a capital letter, after 10 mins I found out she was pressing the 'other' button with an arrow facing up (the 4 arrow keys), and hence why nothing was happening. I can't believe it's my fault cos I've taught several other people to use PCs with no bother!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesmark Posted April 10, 2008 Author Share Posted April 10, 2008 I have to do that with my mum!! She phoned me the other day to ask how to make a capital letter, after 10 mins I found out she was pressing the 'other' button with an arrow facing up (the 4 arrow keys), and hence why nothing was happening. I can't believe it's my fault cos I've taught several other people to use PCs with no bother!! I here you on that, he has had a PC/Laptop since 1996 and he no end of trouble as he gets taken in by all these programmes that say they get rid of unwanted files/delete history etc etc and I plead with him to stop everytime I have to fix it but he still does it saying "but this one is different" I have had a computer the same length of time and I have had to reformat my PC only twice due to a problem but he cannot see the comparrison that why does he get all these problems and I don't. ARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 I will give it a go with him after a few lagers to chill my nerves. lol Cheers Robin/Brian. I know EXACTLY what you mean..my folks are the same, my dad can be downright dangerous on a pc. I found something like norton ghost very handy (The version that takes live snapshots while the system is running), and also some sort of VPN connection back to my house, so I can remotely control the pc and fix any problems. The other option is to build the laptop and create a ghost image on a bootable dvd (a customized recovery disk basically), so when anything goes wrong they just stick it in a boot it... A little bit fiddly in the beginning as you need to make sure they save everything to a seperate partition that won't get blown away with an image refresh. Good luck, if they are anything like my folks, you will need it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now