Format my Acer laptop

[chelsea25]

I have had my laptop for around 4 years now and it obviously has got a lot of stuff on it, mostly useless. and is running generally slow.

Can anyone tell me, or direct me to a good guide on formatting it back to fresh out the box?

I have the discs that it came with with licence on the bottom.

Can i back up important photos, music, video on a dvd+r first?

Hope someone can help :)

[Ethel]

Somewhere on your hard drive should be the Acer user guide.

Mine is Start - all programs - AcerSystem - User's Guide.

That will tell you exactly how to do it. If you haven't got it, let us know.

You should back up your photos, documents, music and so on. You'll need a few dvd disks. Or have you got a flash drive?

[chelsea25]

Thanks for your reply.

I have had a look at the user guide you mentioned but it doesn't really make sense to me! sorry, i must be thick.

all i understand is that i need to back up my stuff to dvd's ( i haven't got a flash drive)

Then what?

[chelsea25]

Also, my 40gb drive is halved into two 20gb, does that make a difference?

[chelsea25]

I have also just realised that i can't write anything to dvd!

So i will now need a lot of cd-r's!

Or would it be better to get a flash drive?

[Ethel]

Flash drives are cheap enough - get the largest size you can afford.

What model is it?

[chelsea25]

Well, I have just been through all my photos and stuff and deleted unneccesary stuff, amazing what junk you find when your having a good look around!

Think i will have enough cd's to do it now, as i won't probably do it again for another 4 years!

It is a Acer Aspire 3003.

Any easy tips on what to do after i have backed up everything?
also is there a way to save my favourites? and emais?

Thanks again.

[VillageVicar]

I have an Acer as well. I�m probably going to follow your thread. I can�t get my DVD player to work. Each time I load a dvd it�s too slow so everything is in a screen shots. I need to spend another hour being on hold with Acer.


If you have any basic questions, they�re not that bad I suppose. You may call them on: 01752 243 890 or: 0870 853 1000

I wish you the best of luck!

Fr Bill

[Ethel]

Regarding your emails - a quick and easy back up is to open a web based email account (I love gmail) and forward all your emails to that.

Then they are stored safely online.

[Ethel]

What disks do you have? The Acer ones.

[chelsea25]

Thanks for the heads up on the email.

I have the Acer discs the laptop came with, labeled
Disk 1 Bootable
then 3 disks labeled 1-3 saying English XP home

Is this what i will need?

[Ethel]

Turn your laptop off, put the disk in and start.

What happens?

Are you sure you want to do this? It will be a lot of work ahead installing all your programs again - firewall, antivirus and so on.

[chelsea25]

I have done it!

Just did as you said, alt F10, followed the instructions and it did it all it's self, have got a fresh feeling laptop that i have loaded my AVG and Zone alarm onto already!

Thanks for all your help :)

Oh by the way when you do do the alt F10 thing it says about installing drivers, will i need to do that?

[Ethel]

If things don't work properly you will get a message about drivers.

It might be worthwhile looking on the internet to download the most up to date drivers, but if all is working well, leave well alone.

Well done!

[chelsea25]

Thanks again for all your help,

I am well pleased!!