Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

reinstalling windows vista

Jul 29, 2008 11:16PM PDT

My computer keeps freezing and after looking at it my friend said i should just reinstall windows b/c its probably a software issue or has spyware - So i have 2 question-

1- Do I need to wipe out everything first or can i just reinstall windows

2- Whats this partition thing - all i want to do is reinstall winodws - what should i do when i get to the part where it askes me where i want to install windows?

Thanks!

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
That depends...
Jul 30, 2008 12:16AM PDT

If you have a manufacturer's recovery system (DVDs from HP, Dell, etc), it will likely format itself...just point and click. On the other hand, if it's a standard Vista DVD I would suggest, when reaching the part where it asks you where to install Vista to, deleting the existing partition and then creating a new one, installing Vista there. (Partitions are logical divisions of a hard drive. Even if you only have one partition the size of the entire hard drive you must have one in order to use the space.)

Hope this helps,
John

- Collapse -
os disk
Jul 30, 2008 12:25AM PDT

so i have the "Microsoft windows vista home premium 32-bit OPERATING SYSTEM DISC" so your saying that all i need to do is put it in and reinstall?

- Collapse -
also
Jul 30, 2008 12:33AM PDT

and its from gateway

- Collapse -
That should be the case...
Jul 30, 2008 1:30AM PDT

Though if it gives you the option of deleting/recreating the partition or formatting the drive I would take the opportunity to do so. Just make sure you've copied ALL of your personal files off the hard drive first.

Good luck.
John