How do I factory restore an advent atom milano n270 102.4mb 160gb Microsoft xp 10.2 widescreen TFT to it's original condition with no recovery discs?.. Thanks..

This depends on two questions: 1) can you currently boot the system into Windows okay; and 2) Do you wish to save your pictures, documents, videos, music and/or other data?

If you don't care or can't open the system to retrieve the data, then you can do a full "wipe and replace." If you need that data or just wish to repair the system without data loss, you can do a "boot and repair." I'll start with the last and then tell you about the first.

"Boot and Repair"

First, if you don't have an external CD Drive you may have a difficult time of it. But if you do here are the general steps:

1) Get a OEM copy of the XP CD. Hopefully you have the COA (i.e license number) somewhere. It is usually affixed to the bottom of the system. I'd write it down before I started as it's a real pain to hold the thing up to look under it as you are trying to type it when asked.

2) Attach the CD drive.

If you just wish to repair and can boot into Windows, boot into Windows, put the CD into the drive. Once the setup program starts press "Install" and then select "Upgrade." This will repair the current Windows installation, though you may have to then re-install your programs. It will also leave your accounts, data, and setting intact so you will be okay.

If you wish to actually re-install from scratch and don't care about all those files or have backed them up,

2) Attach the CD drive and put the XP CD in it. Start (or restart) the system and press the F10 key...repeat about once per second until you get a boot menu that lists your external CD drive. Select that and boot.

3) Once you get started the system will ask you if you wish to Repair the system (this is the first time you are asked....there will be another). If you wish to use Recovery Console and know what you are doing, select that though you probably should skip it.

4) After notifying the system to "continue" by pressing the ENTER key you will be asked to read the license agreement. Most people don't but I'll summarize it for you here: Do not use the COA license key on the bottom of the system on any other system. You can only install it on THIS system and should you want to use it on another it's probably breaking a contract.

5) Once you have pressed the F8 key you will be taken to an other option to "Repair" This is where you can "repair" XP (with limited success usually) or (re-Install it.) If you select "repair" there is little you can do to repair it so I'd skip that.

6) Now you get to select Install. If you have a Windows operating system on the drive you must make a difficult decision: "Do I install over the current system, or do I wipe the drive and install a fresh version?" Doing the first will install Windows into a folder called "Windows.000" which may, and probably will, confuse you and cause a lot of problems in the future. I don't recommend it, but the option is there and the comments starting at step 8 are just as applicable to using that folder.

7) If you choose to "wipe" the drive, which I suggest you do, you will now simply tell the system to format (rather than leave the file system intact). From here on out Windows installation is pretty straight forward. Just put the license key in when asked and that's about it. However, you aren't yet done once Windows is installed.

8) Go to Intel support and find the drivers for your system and install them. Drivers are those things that make your hardware able to really talk to Windows. There may be drivers for sound, usb, video, wireless networking, and other things. The best thing to do is to go to Intel, support, look up your model, go to the "downloads" part of your model and download everything. Save them to a place on your drive and when done, install them.

9) Finally, after you have the OS (Windows) and the Drivers installed you only need to re-install your software: antivirus, office suite, etc... and you will be done! Put the data back and you will have everything restored and working much better.