Wiping HD & starting over

[RevCLB]

Hope I'm in right forum. If not please move me.

I have an HP A305W stock out the box except for a Linksys Ethernet card & Crucial RAM upgrade. This machine came w/Windows XP Home. This is the only OS I am even partially acquainted with.

My question is could I wipe my HD & get rid of the HP extraneous stuff? I know this is a proprietary build. It did not come w/insallation discs, just a system recovery function I have used too many times. Am willing to buy
XP installation discs but don't know if I would benefit. I think HP just mirrors the Windows stuff since they ship Windows pre-installed.

Would appreciate any help on this. Am not going to jump into this since I don't understand computers very well but would like feedback. Thanks, RevCLB Happy Holidays (PC correct!!!)

[codered6651]

Yes you can do a clean install on a HP here is a link that might give you a heads up on how http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...t=23363&page=5 and this http://www.hp.com/pond/windowsxp/index.htm

[RevCLB]

Originally Posted by codered6651 Yes you can do a clean install on a HP here is a link that might give you a heads up on how http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...t=23363&page=5 and this http://www.hp.com/pond/windowsxp/index.htm

Thanks for the links. Have more to learn before attempting this. All info is valuable to me (also confusing at times) You forum folks are a real blessing. Thanks again. RevCLB

[pam123]

You're should burn you own restore disks.
Usually one dvd or several cds.
That's all that's going to save you if it turns out you can't get to the restore partition.
As for getting rid of the stuff HP includes, read this : http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=OTI0

It's about Dell but you'll certainly find it to the point.

[RevCLB]

Thanks pam123. Bookmarked this link because there is too much info that I don't understand yet. (Still a dummy, but learning) Thanks again. RevCLB