Need to wipe hard drive without wiping windows 8 (please help! :)

Jessedavid4

Honorable
Dec 12, 2012
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10,530
I am having an issue. For some reason after I installed the beta of a game (infinite crisis) my computer decided to shut down about 2-3 hours after it finished install. I then try to get back on (after waiting for about 20-30 minutes for bios to boot up) the desktop and realize that once I get to the windows 8 start menu, use the desktop "app", then try to open an application my explorer.exe (it seems) does not seem to work anymore.

After several attempts of getting on and trying to open up task manager, I was able to end explorer.exe then reopen it. Did not work.
Then I tried to get onto the boot menu.. would not work, pressed all the F buttons (forgot which one I needed for my computer/startup) and tried this esp + alt thing someone told me could work, which it didn't. So now I am stuck with looking on tom's hardware, where I could not find the answer in a forum post and decided to start on here.

~~If anyone knows how to wipe my hard drive ( manually somehow) without wiping windows 8, that'd be great help!
 
Solution
Uhm NO you can't "wipe the hard drive without wiping Windows 8", Windows 8 resides on the hard drive, you wipe the hard drive you wipe Windows 8 as it is installed (all programs, data, files, etc.).

Okay when you start your computer, you see the 'BIOS' part (Dell Logo, HP, whatever) when it goes to black after that, tap away F8. This should (hopefully) bring up the Windows Options to Start in Safe Mode. Can you get to Safe Mode?
If yes then try a system restore to the point before the game was installed.

If no, then do you have your Windows 8 DVD you were supposed to create when you first started the computer / was included with the computer? If NO, then you have two choices next.

1) Is the computer under warrenty? Can you get...
Uhm NO you can't "wipe the hard drive without wiping Windows 8", Windows 8 resides on the hard drive, you wipe the hard drive you wipe Windows 8 as it is installed (all programs, data, files, etc.).

Okay when you start your computer, you see the 'BIOS' part (Dell Logo, HP, whatever) when it goes to black after that, tap away F8. This should (hopefully) bring up the Windows Options to Start in Safe Mode. Can you get to Safe Mode?
If yes then try a system restore to the point before the game was installed.

If no, then do you have your Windows 8 DVD you were supposed to create when you first started the computer / was included with the computer? If NO, then you have two choices next.

1) Is the computer under warrenty? Can you get support from the maker to 'restore' the computer to when you first turned it on ever (yes you lose EVERYTHING you had on it, but you do want a working computer right?)
2) Go buy a copy of Windows 8 and try to use that to repair your current installation or wipe over it and START all over
3) Get a Lawyer to call the makers of Infinite Crisis and be prepared to sue. I know most of the time the makers usually had Legal write up iron clad 'you are on your own and we aren't responsible for breaking your computer' statements you need to agree to before you can download / install such software, so this maybe a dead end anyway.
 
Solution


Thank you for the help though, best answer given! 🙂