how do i restore my laptop factory settings without cds

[bryan t 04]

i have a compaq presario 2800 i baught from ebay i need to restorethe factory settings but i dont have the cds to do a full system restore and i dont know how to restore the original drivers and software in the help and support center can any1 help me? thanx

[Sergio1704]

i have a compaq presario 2800 i baught from ebay i need to restorethe factory settings but i dont have the cds to do a full system restore and i dont know how to restore the original drivers and software in the help and support center can any1 help me? thanx

It is going to be a lot of fuss. You need a copy of Windows, possibly legal and you'll have to hunt for drivers all over the internet. Possible solutions: 1)Phone Compaq and explain the situation 2)Phone Microsoft: unbelievable that it might sond they are trying to show a nicer face. However even if they help with the OS you still need the drivers. 3)Put a linux distribution on it. This is my favorite solution, as linux comes with all the drivers (you might have issues with the odd one) and tons of apps. My favourites: 1)SUSE: download from here: http://www.interknet.net/bt/ Or: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/curren ... TP-DVD.iso 2)Kanotix: http://kanotix.com/info/index.php 3)Libranet. The new edition, 3.0 is pretty expensive. The previous one is free: http://www.libranet.com/download Good luck!

[richh0323]

Check you're system tools folder, some Compac have a restore function. I know alot of notebooks have this as a seperate partition in the drive just in case they have to be restored.