format and reinstall?

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Guest

after a few recent problems i have decided i want to format my hard drive and
reinstall xp home. i have never attempted this before. is there a step by
step guide i can obtain to walk me through this? i know i have to back up
everything.
happy new year to all
 
The Windows XP CD is bootable and contains all the tools necessary
to partition and format your drive. Follow this procedure and allow
Windows XP to partition and format your drive:

NOTE: It would be best to physically disconnect all your peripheral hardware
devices, except the monitor, mouse and keyboard, before installing XP.

NOTE: If you have an internal Zip Drive installed, physically disconnect the
EIDE and power cable to it before proceeding, otherwise your main
hard drive may not be assigned the customary C: drive letter.
After installing Windows XP, you may then reconnect it.

1. Open your BIOS and set your "CD Drive as the first bootable device".

===> Accessing Motherboard BIOS
===> http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

2. Insert your Windows XP CD in the CD Drive and reboot your computer.
3. You'll see a message to boot to the CD....follow the instructions.
4. The setup menu will appear and you should elect to delete all the existing
Windows partitions, then create a new partition, then format the primary
partition (preferably NTFS) and proceed to install Windows XP.

5. Clean Install Windows XP
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

[Courtesy of Michael Stevens, MS-MVP]

6. ==> Immediately after installing Windows XP, turn on XP's Firewall.
==> http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.mspx

7. After Windows XP is installed, visit the Windows Update website
and download the available "Critical Updates".

8. After installing the critical updates, be sure and visit the support website
of the manufacturer of the computer to download and install any
available Windows XP compatible drivers, such as video adapter
and audio drivers.

9. If you happen to run into any installation difficulties, use the following resources:

How to Troubleshoot Windows XP Problems During Installation
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;310064

Troubleshooting Windows XP Setup
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_setup.htm

[Courtesy of MS-MVP Kelly Theriot]

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| after a few recent problems i have decided i want to format my hard drive and
| reinstall xp home. i have never attempted this before. is there a step by
| step guide i can obtain to walk me through this? i know i have to back up
| everything.
| happy new year to all
| --
| seanpaul99
 
seanpaul99 said:
after a few recent problems i have decided i want to format my hard drive and
reinstall xp home. i have never attempted this before. is there a step by
step guide i can obtain to walk me through this? i know i have to back up
everything.
happy new year to all
Click to expand...


After backing up or copying any important personal data files to a
CD or other removable storage media, simply boot from the WinXP
installation CD. You'll be offered the opportunity to delete, create,
and format partitions as part of the installation process. (You may need
to re-arrange the order of boot devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from
the CD.)

HOW TO Install Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;316941

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm

However, a complete re-installation of an OS and the applications is a
lot of work and is rarely necessary to correct most problems. Perhaps
if you were to post your specific problems and provide the relevant
details concerning your computer, someone here would be able to offer
you a much less draconian solution.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
 
seanpaul99 said:
after a few recent problems i have decided i want to format my hard
drive and reinstall xp home. i have never attempted this before. is
there a step by step guide i can obtain to walk me through this? i
know i have to back up everything.
Click to expand...


Just boot from the Windows XP CD (change the BIOS boot order if necessary to
accomplish this) and follow the prompts for a clean installation (delete the
existing partition by pressing "D" when prompted, then create a new one).

You can find detailed instructions here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

or here http://windowsxp.mvps.org/XPClean.htm

or here http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm

However why do you want to reformat and reinstall? In my view, it's usually
a mistake. With a modicum of care, it should never be necessary to reinstall
Windows (XP or any other version). I've run Windows 3.0, 3.1, WFWG 3.11,
Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP, each for the period of
time before the next version came out, and each on two machines here. I
never reinstalled any of them, and I have never had anything more than an
occasional minor problem.

It's my belief that this mistaken notion stems from the technical support
people at many of the larger OEMs. Their solution to almost any problem they
don't quickly know the answer to is "reformat and reinstall." That's the
perfect solution for them. It gets you off the phone quickly, it almost
always works, and it doesn't require them to do any real troubleshooting (a
skill that most of them obviously don't possess in any great degree).

But it leaves you with all the work and all the problems. You have to
restore all your data backups, you have to reinstall all your programs, you
have to reinstall all the Windows and application updates,you have to locate
and install all the needed drivers for your system, you have to recustomize
Windows and all your apps to work the way you're comfortable with.

Besides all those things being time-consuming and troublesome, you may have
trouble with some of them: can you find all your application CDs? Can you
find all the needed installation codes? Do you have data backups to restore?
Do you even remember all the customizations and tweaks you may have
installed to make everything work the way you like? Occasionally there are
problems that are so difficult to solve that Windows should be reinstalled
cleanly. But they are few and far between; reinstallation should not be a
substitute for troubleshooting; it should be a last resort, to be done only
after all other attempts at troubleshooting by a qualified person have
failed.

If you have problems, post them here; it's likely that someone can help you
and a reinstallation won't be required.
 
many thanks Bruce, i have posted my problems over the past week or so,
unfortunately a remedy was not forthcoming.
my add os remove programs has lost the option to remove/change programs.
system restore cannot restore to any given point.
i have xp home ps2 on a Dell dimension 5000 machine. i run norton nis 2006,
ad-aware pro, microsoft anti-spyware, spy-bot s&d.
many thanks.
 
seanpaul99 said:
many thanks Bruce, i have posted my problems over the past week or so,
unfortunately a remedy was not forthcoming.
my add os remove programs has lost the option to remove/change programs.
Click to expand...


Have you attempted to repair damaged systems files by running the
System File Checker?





--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
 
There is an illustrated guide to installing windows xp on my website
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org Click the Win XP Faq button and take a look
at question 85

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org

The information in this post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any kind,
either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this post. The Author shall not be liable for any
direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use
of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this post..
 
If you are using a Dell. did they not supply a complete recover CD
with the system?? I would use that as it will put your system back to
the original configuration that Dell had on the disk when you
purchased it.
TonySper

many thanks Bruce, i have posted my problems over the past week or so,
unfortunately a remedy was not forthcoming.
my add os remove programs has lost the option to remove/change
programs.
system restore cannot restore to any given point.
i have xp home ps2 on a Dell dimension 5000 machine. i run norton nis
2006,
ad-aware pro, microsoft anti-spyware, spy-bot s&d.
many thanks.
 
Sorry for posting in this thread but i do not know where else to post.
i have recently got a virus, it had infected all of the file
C:\WINDOWS\inet20001, every time my virus protection tried to delete or move
or heal them the virus came back, i believe the virus had infected the
backups too, the only way i could get rid of them was by deleting the file
inet2001, will this cause any bad consequences and repercussions, if so how
do i get them back without getting back the virus, i do not have the original
windows xp professional operating system installation disc, but i do have a
system recovery disc.
 
Thanks for your response J.
I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. I was not using the arrows and
spacebar, as well as the F1 button(info) to make necessary changes.

Since my drivers loaded but Windows could not detect the device/hardware
(code 41 ), I went to the manufacturer's website. Samsung

Once there I found that is where you get better updates and upgrades. In
the 'find' box I typed "cdrw', it took me to a page for upgrades and manuals
for all types of "built in". Note: Whether or not it says manual or firmware
click on it, it takes you to the page for both. For my DVD/CDROM Samsung
CD-R/RW SW 248F, I found an upgrade and manual. It was FREE!

Annnnnnnnnnd Voila..it is working!

Hopefully this will help someone that is considering reinstallation as I
was, or new PC purchase. Well, after 5 days of neverending searching and
tries/fails I have reached the goal I sought.

Thanks all in the thread and Be Blessed
 
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