Q: I used to have an OK PC with Windows XP on which I bought from a local PC superstore. It worked well but my Lil Brother used to use it too much and it got filled with Spyware etc you name it so I took the opportunity to upgrade to a Vista Desktop. Unfortunately Vista sucks and so I decided to switch back to my XP PC but now i'm stuck with all the virus riddled software. I planned to use the recovery disk to reset it to factory settings (This time i'm installing AVG before anyone uses the internet!) but the PC is nearly 5 years old now and the disks have long since disappeared. In addition to this, the company that made the PC has closed down and its new owners are telling me that its not their problem anymore. I've decided that I need to take the hit and buy a brand new version of XP and do a fresh install but i'm worried about all the other things that are on the boot disk that i'm missing (drivers etc). I know i need to find out who made what component and check their website to download them but i'm not sure how i can find out who made each part. I'm not even sure if i need the drivers... maybe XP will it out on its own?? Anyways, I'm wondering if anyone here has had to install an OS from scratch on a PC and can give me any advice. I'm worried i'm gonna mess this all up! Thanks in advance!
A: if you have never re formated a computer you should look up online and find a step by step instruction of it and print it out! or just use a different computer during the process. secondly, if you have a real version of the os you can just install that and it will have some drivers on it for the things you cant normally find, but for the video and sound card and all the extra things you put in there you have to get the drivers from their websites when you start the computer again after installing the new os it should say "found new hardware" and itll list all the things you have without drivers and you can find them easily then