James

Sorry to bring up old thread again (just got back from gap year travels so still havent done this yet), Once i get to the stage of selecting partitions to delete/format i have two current sections: One drive part named "-" (which i presume means unamed), which is a 32 meg part in FAT32 file system (with i think 25meg used), the other drive part; "C" is the rest of the hard drive (120GB) in NTFS. What should i do at this point? a) Delete both and create a single new NTFS in the unpartitioned space? b) Delete both and create a new version of both? c) Delete neither and just re-format the "C" part? d) Delete the "C" part only and then create a new one but leave the FAT32 part? e) You've got the completely wrong idea in all the above, do this..... (not sure if i mentioned above but using windows xp pro and a dell dimension 8250) I read somewhere i can't remeber about dells after a certain date being shipped with a partition and something to do with reformatting but i can't remeber where anyone know anything about this? Thanks!

Thanks for the advice, much, much appreciated!

thanks, very helpful info. Formatting the drive like this will delete everything right including all stuff like files in my documents, because I have so much crap i just want to get rid of absolutely everything and start afresh. Also what does the computer do about drivers etc. (i.e. for graphics cards, printers etc.) when you format like this. Will i need to reinstall most uptodate drivers for my graphics card, bb connection etc. Thanks for help!

Hi, basically I've had my comp a few years now and at the moment I'm on my gap year so i'm not using my computer for work and have nothing really important on it. I thought it might be a good time, as it seems to be slowing down, to wipe it completely clean and start afresh. I have all the windows, office etc. all the software i think i need cds. Hardware wise, it's still ok'ish it was top of the market when i bought it and it seems to be going ok (i.e. I can run fairly demanding programs like battlefield2 on moderate-high graphics without too many problems) but I have installed so much crap on it and unistalled thing incorrectly etc. when i was completely new to computing so I was hoping someone could give me advice on: a) how to do this, i have never done it before. b) the risks involved - is it worth it or am i likely to get stuck with a non functioning computer. c) anything else you can think of that may be of help. Thanks for any help, if you need more details just ask!

Hi, Basically I had this problem on my computer a few days ago: http://extremetechsupport.com/forum/showthread.phtml?t=279016 (I also tried a system restore after this to a point where I think it was working fine but it did not solve the following) Which I have mostly fixed now, the only remaining problem I have is that when I try and run certain installers (an example being the latest google earth update). I get the error message: "The application has failed to start because LZ32.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem." I don't think it's localized to the installer as it has happened on serveral others too. I did a search on the net but all I could find was some program called PC MightyMax which claimed it could fix it, i did some searching on this and it seemed to be a legit program so I downloaded it and ran the scan. Anyway it identified loads of problems but to use the autorepair function on the program you have to pay for a license fee (which i obviously didnt want to do).

ok will do, havent had any problems yet apart from one when i try and run one installer i get the error message lz32.dll was not found and the installer then fails to run, so i got to find some way to repair that file. I think lz32.dll was the same file that had the image checksum mismatch. Any advice on this? Also if the hard disk does fail i know i loose all the data on the disk but to get my computer up and running again is it just a matter of purchasing and installing a new hardrive?

I managed to find my windows xp disk so i coud boot to recovery console, i did the chkdsk scan but that didntwork. I had a look at some of the similar posts to this one and I used the microsoft support page for expanding a file from the disk to the comp, so i did that and overite the corrupt/missing file. That fixed that problem but then after loading onto desktop i got a crash to blue screen with something about and image checksum not matching the computed sum so then i ran the chkdsk again and that fixed that problem. So i guess nothing is wrong with the disk as i have had no more problems. Bit of a weird problem, it must have been due to conflicting updates or something stupid. Anyway thanks for the adivce.

I just got back from 5 month trip to china, turned on my PC and did windows auto update, then I also auto updated my java runtime environment (before restarting the computer). I guess there was a conflict in the updates or something but now when I turn my computer on I get a black screen with a message saying something like: Windows cannot start up because the file: \Windows\System32\L_INTL.NLS is missing or corrupt It also advises me to put in my windows xp prof. set-up disk and try to repair the file. Unfortunately I have misplaced the disk and could only find the windows reinstall disk. I have a second comp, also on windows xp prof. which is working fine is there a way of transferring the file that is missing or corrupt to my other computer from this one, or another general solution to the problem. Thanks for any help, much appreciated!