How to Save Lots Of Money By Fixing Your Dead Computer Yourself.

General steps for reviving a dead Windows computer desktop or notebook.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Blank CD's and/or floppy disks and original Windows Installation CD's. Also another computer with internet access nearby, for obtaining additional information and missing device drivers.

1. First boot up the dead computer and hit F1 to get into the BIOS.
   Change the boot operating sequence so that the floppy drive or CD drive is the first boot drive. Format a DOS boot floppy disk or CD and boot the dead computer with it.

2. Next once the dead computer is booted up in DOS mode use DOS commands Fdisk or Delpart or obtain a DOS utility from the internet to completely erase the hard drive.

3. Then reinstall your Windows operating system from the original Windows CD's. You will be asked to create and format a partition, answer "yes".

4. Finally once Windows is up and running you will need to reinstall all the various device drivers for your brand of computer. Use the software that came with your computer to do this, or go to the manufacturer's web site to obtain the drivers. To determine which device drivers are missing and need to be reinstalled, on the newly revived computer go to Start, right click My Computer, then click Properties, Hardware, Device Manager.

Tips & Warnings

• If you get stuck with any of the above, use a search engine like "Google" to search for the additional information you need. This means you will need to have an additional computer with internet access on hand during this process.
• In the process of completely erasing the hard drive you will lose all the data that was on the drive, so only do this if your data is not that important, or it is already backed up elsewhere. If your data is critical then you will need to pay for costly professional computer repair to recover the data from the drive.

[Desula]

on 8/13/2008 This is good information. I've got to try this out.

[Elizabethknows]

on 8/13/2008 good info I hope this does not happen to me. Thanks for sharing=]