I own a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop with Windows Vista. My brother somehow got a virus on it and I asked my friend who knows a lot about computers to come over and help. He tried just about everything and the last resort was to wipe everything on my computer including Windows Vista. We didn’t think it would work until I found a reinstallation CD for Windows Vista home premium 32bit sp1 that came with my laptop. So we wiped my computer and reinstalled Vista.
I noticed when I logged on that everything looked bigger like in safe mode and I didn’t have as much options as I did with Windows Vista. I tried to connect to the internet so I could reinstall programs but couldn’t do it. I’ve tried everything and looked at my wireless router 5374879042 times!!!! No luck. I was up all night with my friend trying to figure something out and nothing worked… I looked at the cd one more time and noticed in small print it said that this was not used to reinstall programs or drivers. Then I found out about “System Restore” and felt like a complete idiot….I tried to do that and it would only take me back to after we wiped everything (which I figured).
HELP!!!!!
Reinstalling Windows Vista…big Mistake?
By WinPie Posted in: windows
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This exact thing happened to me – at least the part about reinstalling Vista and nothing working. The problem is that your computer doesn’t have any driver software on it. You see, for everything on a computer, the operating system needs a driver so it knows how to use things.
You’re saying that the screen is big. This is because your computer doesn’t have the right drivers for your VGN graphics card. You can’t connect to the internet because you need the drivers for your wireless card (if you’re using a laptop).
The solution: go to the library or a friend’s computer that has internet access and download drivers for your computer onto a flash drive. (You won’t be able to plug in the ethernet cord and run Windows Update; your computer needs drivers for the ethernet cord too.) The website of the company that manufactured your computer should have plenty of drivers for the VGN and Wireless. My computer was made by Acer, and they have a great selection of driver software. I think any other company like HP, Sony, or whoever made your computer should have things to download.
Once you have them on your flash drive and plugged into your computer, you can install them. Then you should be able to have a regular screen size and internet. You may also want to get Audio drivers so you can use headphones and microphones.
I really hope this works for you. When I had this happened to me I was devastated so I know how you feel!
Another thing you could do is just get another operating system. I installed Ubuntu, a free Linux-based operating system, to run alongside Windows while I found the right driver software. It already new the drivers for my computer so I could use the internet right away with a regular screen size. But I wouldn’t recommend going with this option unless you’ve really had it trying to find the right drivers and are okay giving up Windows to use Linux.
you need to adjust your SCREEN RESOLUTION
He was right to wipe out everything and reinstall the operating system, System Restore is significantly flawed in that it will not fix any sort of infestation, only configuration issues.
What happened is that you don’t have the necessary drivers for your hardware. The easiest solution is to look around for a driver CD that came with your laptop. Alternatively, try and get an internet connection (if your wifi doesn’t work, plug it in with an ethernet cable) and run Windows Update. It’ll check with Microsoft to find the latest drivers for your laptop.
When everything is all set, I suggest you install Microsoft Security Essentials to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Its a free antivirus program from Microsoft, and it doesn’t get in your way or annoy you like other programs do.