• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 16:07
CEST 22:07
KST 05:07
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Siren's Call8[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Summer's End9Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2915Serral wins Maestros of the Game 244ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3
Community News
New 3v3 BGH Ladder (and more) on ShieldBattery!31Weekly Cups (August 17-23): Zerg dominate the week5Weekly Cups (August 10-16): SHIN doubles2GSTL Returns in 2026!45Weekly Cups (Aug 3-9): Protoss get shut out7
StarCraft 2
General
SC4ALL II: SC2 Player Announcement 6/8 - Maru How would you feel about frequent/monthly balance patches for SC2? Balance hotfix patch 5.0.16b (July 16) Weekly Cups (August 17-23): Zerg dominate the week Starcraft2 player guess game is Coming~!
Tourneys
Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament 2026 GSTL Announcement IntoTheTV X SOOP SC2 League : Weekly & Monthly PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August) WORTEX 2026 - Hungarian SC2 Finals Budapest
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
Nexus Wars 2021 GUIDE [M] (2) Industrial Park
External Content
Mutation # 540 Dodge This The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 539 Thunder Dome Mutation # 538 Media Blackout
Brood War
General
Pros React To: Calm's Big Brain Play Vs Mini !!!NEW BUG!!! FIRE ARCHONS [Visual] BW General Discussion New 3v3 BGH Ladder (and more) on ShieldBattery! [Personal Project Share] Terran Defense v0.60
Tourneys
[ASL22] Ro24 Group F [Megathread] Daily Proleagues Escore Tournament - Season 3 KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
Strategy
Replay Review Process - What do you do? Game Theory for Starcraft Odyssey Mineral Stack Saturation Fighting Spirit mining rates
Other Games
General Games
General RTS Discussion Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Nintendo Switch Thread Anyone here play Quakeworld back in the day? EVE Corporation
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish TSM pausing esports and CLG Dead
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Power Rank TL Mafia Community Thread NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Artificial Intelligence Thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
MarineLorD Fan Club The Creator Fan Club The ShoWTimE Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion! Anime Discussion Thread
Sports
Football (Soccer) Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 MLB/Baseball 2023 NBA General Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Northern Ireland Global Starcraft
Blogs
Violent Games and Crime Rate…
TrAiDoS
LOCKPICKING NOOB
LUCKY_NOOB
Cathedral Of CS And NY pizza a…
FuDDx
Please support my new stand…
Peanutsc
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 8161 users

[H] How to reformat a computer

Blogs > [Fin]Vittu
Post a Reply
[Fin]Vittu
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Canada507 Posts
January 18 2009 06:16 GMT
#1
So I bought one of those generic computers from futureshop, an HP one. I think it is plagued with viruses slowing my internet down insanely. I always wanted to reformat but I don't think my computer game with a copy of vista. So I was wondering if there is a way going around this without a cd. In addition, being a poor student I don't really have the money to buy an external hard drive...maybe those 2gb flash drives but I don't think they can hold my whole computer on it.

Thanks in advance!

The "Finnish Metal Terran"
nataziel
Profile Blog Joined October 2008
Australia1455 Posts
January 18 2009 06:29 GMT
#2
Umm, you could try download an ISO of vista and burn it onto a disk, then format your computer that way, but if you don't have a disc handy it's gonna be a bitch to do.

Also, there's no way in hell a 2gb flash drive would hold your whole computer on it at all, just back up the stuff you need onto DVD's then reformat. Make sure you're running AVG when you get your computer back up and running too.
u gotta sk8
HeavOnEarth
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
United States7087 Posts
January 18 2009 06:34 GMT
#3
you could try running a virus scan? just to see how bad the dmaage is first =/
"come korea next time... FXO house... 10 korean, 10 korean"
0xDEADBEEF
Profile Joined September 2007
Germany1235 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-01-18 07:33:15
January 18 2009 07:31 GMT
#4
If it didn't came with a copy of the OS but the OS was preinstalled, then there must be some kind of recovery partition (separate drive number): space on the hard drive from which you can reinstall the operating system. It's not a real installation, but an image, so you end up with the same crap on it again. But that's how you reinstall Windows on new customer PCs.
This partition may be invisible to Windows. If you're missing several gigabytes of HDD space (not counting the space which is always lost due to drive manufacturers counting 1 GB = 1000 MB instead of 1 GB = 1024 MB), then you have such a partition.
Sometimes the vendor even allows you to burn a recovery DVD from that recovery partition, in that case there is probably some tool pre-installed which does it for you.
In any case, there should be some tool or documentation which explains how to use it.
And no, I don't think your PC is infected with viruses just because your internet is slow. That is almost definitely a software problem. First thing you should do is uninstalling/disabling all useless software including a personal firewall if there is one.
Besides, viruses making the PC slow or damaging it is so last millenium. Most modern malware operates undetected and steals interesting information or uses your PC for a botnet.
[Fin]Vittu
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Canada507 Posts
January 18 2009 07:53 GMT
#5
On January 18 2009 16:31 0xDEADBEEF wrote:
If it didn't came with a copy of the OS but the OS was preinstalled, then there must be some kind of recovery partition (separate drive number): space on the hard drive from which you can reinstall the operating system. It's not a real installation, but an image, so you end up with the same crap on it again. But that's how you reinstall Windows on new customer PCs.
This partition may be invisible to Windows. If you're missing several gigabytes of HDD space (not counting the space which is always lost due to drive manufacturers counting 1 GB = 1000 MB instead of 1 GB = 1024 MB), then you have such a partition.
Sometimes the vendor even allows you to burn a recovery DVD from that recovery partition, in that case there is probably some tool pre-installed which does it for you.
In any case, there should be some tool or documentation which explains how to use it.
And no, I don't think your PC is infected with viruses just because your internet is slow. That is almost definitely a software problem. First thing you should do is uninstalling/disabling all useless software including a personal firewall if there is one.
Besides, viruses making the PC slow or damaging it is so last millenium. Most modern malware operates undetected and steals interesting information or uses your PC for a botnet.


my buddy came over and ran a -netstat -na or something like that on my cmd. he looked at some values and said i have one. which explains why my stream is so slow. another thing is that, the same friend checked his speed on the gom tv network checker and his speed was 3 times faster than mine even though we are on the same ISP.

Regarding my computer, i do have such a partition. I looked at my computer and i see my c drive and a d drive called "recovery"

How about to i go about that? I am not too sure when my last recovery point was.
The "Finnish Metal Terran"
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
RotterdaM Event
16:30
Rotti's PatchesSC Open
RotterdaM961
TKL 284
IndyStarCraft 237
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
RotterdaM 961
ByuN 404
TKL 284
IndyStarCraft 237
ZombieGrub37
JuggernautJason29
ProTech12
EnDerr 8
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 18168
Calm 3513
Mini 166
Dewaltoss 147
Soulkey 100
Hm[arnc] 16
League of Legends
KnowMe71
Heroes of the Storm
Liquid`Hasu355
Other Games
Grubby2735
fl0m2308
FrodaN700
Beastyqt667
crisheroes640
B2W.Neo431
shahzam421
mouzStarbuck288
XaKoH 259
C9.Mang0159
ArmadaUGS79
Trikslyr66
Chillindude19
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick894
StarCraft 2
angryscii 11
[ Show 13 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• masondota21448
League of Legends
• TFBlade960
Other Games
• imaqtpie1255
• Shiphtur185
• Scarra112
Upcoming Events
The PiG Daily
53m
BASILISK vs TBD
Serral vs Rogue
Korean StarCraft League
5h 53m
GSL
14h 53m
AI Arena Tournament
20h 53m
Replay Cast
1d 3h
WardiTV Weekly
1d 14h
Sparkling Tuna Cup
2 days
Afreeca Starleague
2 days
GSL
3 days
PiGosaur Cup
4 days
[ Show More ]
Replay Cast
5 days
The PondCast
5 days
IntoTheTV X SOOP
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-08-27
PiG Sty Festival 8.0
META DYMY #4

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
K-JUNGMAN
ASL Season 22
Super Anchor Qualifying S3
CSL Season 22: Qualifier 2
RSL Revival: Season 6
Light Tournament 2026
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
Esports World Cup 2026: LCQ
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026

Upcoming

BSL 2026 LAN: Kraków
CSL 2026 AUTUMN (S22)
Escore Tournament S3: King of Kings
Acropolis #5
Acropolis #5 - TRS
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Acropolis #5 - GSA
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Offline Finals
Calamity Invitational
Big Dog Cup 2026 Div 1
IEM Beijing 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 5
PGL Masters Bucharest 2026
1win Private Club #2
Thunderpick World Champ. '26
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
1win Private Club #1
Logitech G Play Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #3
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.