Reformat PC without disk. bought ext HD, got rar file

[WOT]

Well Id LOVE your help lol, whats this easy fix

 

[Tiger Bass 5,000+ posts]

Just formatted my PC about 2 hours ago to Linux. Pretty cool shit.

 

[Scoobydoo 5,000+ posts]

buy one of the 500gb drives i am selling for $45 and start from scratch

 

[TurdFergueson2 5,000+ posts]

Looks like randy went on a vicous rampage lol and the thread got deleted
Anyways I made a thread earlier about reformatting and backing up my pc. But I dont have the original XP disks that came with the pc 3 years ago. So in the past 3 hours I went and bought a western digital ext hardrive 250gb for $100 and started copying over all my important files.

The torrent that proximity (id love to know who is in ur avatar btw) sent me finished downloading, but it has a .rar file extension and is 503mb, how do you extract that? Once extracted is it simply copying and pasting all of its contents onto a blank cd, using the product cd key on the side of my computer and its done??

Just dont want my pc to be messed for good or do something that cant be fixed.

thanks

7 zip for the .rar file

you might need to burn the disc in .ISO format

And from the sounds of it, you are still able to access the drive. You might just have a bad spyware/virus issue.

And 100 for a 250 external is a ripoff. You can get a 1 TB for that price.

 

[WOT]

Well I didnt get a chnce to try anything today because I picked up a double shift

Anyways, im lost here. I dont know if Im doing this right. The file I downloaded from proximity, is a .rar file, I extract it using winrar and 4 files come out of it, a big .ISO file, an windows xp picture, and 2 useless text documents.

If I just burn that .iso file onto a cd and boot the pc with it, it does nothing, loads as normal, and if I try and click that .iso file to open it up, it automatically opens up nero and wants to burn it to a cd, wont let me just "open" it.

BUT, I can also RIGHT click that .iso file, click extract files, extract to a new folder, and thats when the 15 or so files come out, with the setup and autorun and such that I am able to click.

Id really love to get this **** well solved.

I thought formatting a pc would be alot easier.

I do think its some sort of bad *** spyware, Im getting some errors, and my internet cuts out after a while and will only work again if I reboot

 

[Scoobydoo 5,000+ posts]

there is a difference between just burning an iso and making a bootable iso image

spyware/viruses have nothing to do with it if you set the bios to boot the optical drive first and you have a bootable windows disc in the drive

 

[WOT]

Can youquickly run me through making an ISO image bootable then, what has to go on the cd in which way would be nice

Ive got Nero, and jsut got alcohol 120, but dont understand alcohol at all. Nero isnt bad though

 

[Proximity 10+ year member]

With nero there should be somewhere where it says burn an image to a disk, and then you just pick the.iso file and it should be self explanatory,

 

[Scoobydoo 5,000+ posts]

i use dvd decrypter to burn iso files so i would be no help

 

[WOT]

well my nero aint working on my computer so i just went and snagged my sisters computer and am downloading nero now, hoping with the tril version I can still do what i want

On my express version at home, you can make a bottable data disk it called it, is that what im looking for?

And only the iso file itself is what needs to be burned?

 

[WOT]

K well I downloaded the nero off download.com trial version on my sisters comp, did a regular data disk burn (it only has this option, audio disc, or disk copy) with the iso file only and it didnt work

How the hell do you make a bootable disk??

 

[WOT]

GOT IT!! Alcohol 120 got it for me

Was pretty easy to do after it boted, having some resolution problems with my 22" screen, bu Im sure ill figure that out, internet seems to install itself to //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

YAY for problem free PC!!