Is There A Better Way To Reformat Vista

[ozymandious]

Hello TV members. I need some help with this question; Is there a better way to reformat Vista after I've already upgraded to Ultimate and downloaded SP1?

About 1 year ago I got a HP Pavilion Laptop that came with Vista Premium. It didn't come with recovery disks but had a "create your own" utility, and a partitioned section of the drive for recovery from the Hard disk. I made my own recovery disks first thing when the computer was still fresh. After about 3 months passed I upgraded to Vista Ultimate, I bought a upgrade DVD from Best Buy (my comp didn't come with one) and purchased the upgrade Key online from MS. When Vista SP1 came out I let my computer up date it's OS to SP1. Now that some more time has passed and applications and games have made their way onto and off of my PC it's a little sluggish and takes awhile to boot. I want to go all the way and reformat, but will I be starting from scratch again?

If I use the HD partition to reformat will it keep my Ultimate and SP1 status or am I back at Premium and will have to do both, LENGTHY download/upgrades again? I ask about the HD partition reformat because I assume the back up DVDs I created predate the Ultimate and SP1 upgrades.

Is there a better way to reformat my PC?

I've heard of something called 'slipstreaming' can this help me?

-Ozy

[Florin]

Slipstreaming SP1 to an existing Vista DVD can't really be done, what I've seen are DVD images straight off MSDN with the service pack included...since you have a real serial number, if I were you I'd get the actual DVD with SP1 integrated from some...source and just use the legit serial number.

[Roadkill]

I've got a ZD8230 HP Pav and I used the xp slipstream instructions from this website; here are the Vista instructions: http://www.labnol.org/software/tutorials/s...ntegrated/2750/

[JSixpack]

Is there a better way to reformat my PC?

Yes, with an XP SP2 or SP3 disk, just before it installs XP. Your computer will definitely seem much faster.

[Digitalbanana]

Not trying to get off topic, but I had a similar concern, PC slowing, a reformat was in order, then I used Ccleaner instead, saved a bunch of time and the thing runs like new!

[ozymandious]

Not trying to get off topic, but I had a similar concern, PC slowing, a reformat was in order, then I used Ccleaner instead, saved a bunch of time and the thing runs like new!

Big fan of CCleaner, use it once a week and it's made a difference on some computers that I've newly introduced it to. (Personal best on a friends machine 5.5 gigs of crap removed)

As Regards a Vista DVD with SP1 from MSDN, I've got a friend who has an MSDN account and he's going to burn me a disk and I'll use my real key to activate.

Now here's a twist in the reformat option, is there a way to back up the HP branded stuff that came with the laptop? e.g. the touch control button drivers?

or just do the reformat, go to the HP site and DL all and any extras and drivers that I need?

[Florin]

or just do the reformat, go to the HP site and DL all and any extras and drivers that I need?

Yep

[crev]

or just do the reformat, go to the HP site and DL all and any extras and drivers that I need?

Yep

I 2nd the motion.

[ozymandious]

Thanks guys!