The Apprentice said:
It has got to the point of reformatting the hard drive and all fixes
have not worked to
improve speed.
How do I reformat with XP Home? I will be installing XP Pro after the
reformatting.
Looked in Google and visited many sites but need a site for dummies,
so please recommend
one or PLEASE let me know what to do.
Thanks in advance
What kind of XP Pro disk will you be using? Full or Upgrade?
Why do you feel you need to go from Home to Pro? The differences are
few, and in your case, they are probably inconsequential.
You neglected to say what was wrong with your PC (other than you want to
improve its speed). You also neglected to tell us which fixes you tried.
You should know that this is the important issue. If you don't know how
you arrived at this situation, you will almost surely arrive there
again, even with a clean install of a new operating system.
If it turns out you really need to perform a clean install, then you
will be formatting the hard drive with the XP Pro disk, not with the XP
Home disk. Then you will use the same disk to install the OS. These
instructions are straightforward:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
Keep in mind you will need to make sure all your existing data (Word
documents, pictures, videos, songs, e-mails, Web browser favorites,
etc.) is backed up to a different medium. You will need all the drivers
for the different components in your PC (for a major brand like Dell,
you need to go their Web site first and download them all if you don't
have them). And you need all the installation media and files for all
the programs you run.
Reinstalling is a major undertaking! Are you sure you don't want to take
another crack at identifying and fixing whatever problem you have? If
so, just post here in as much detail as possible, and I'm sure we'll be
able to help you resolve your issue.
