re-formatting in xp?

  • Thread starter Thread starter man_in@mac
  • Start date Start date
M

man_in@mac

I have a problem which was caused by the bl;aster worm,
whilts I was away we got attacked.
the upshot of all that was my son doing a re-installation
of xp on the machine.
Despite this the system is still showing all sorts of
gliches, I would like to wipe the hdd and start from
scratch but I cannot seem to find out how to do all that..
anyone help?

thanks
 
Boot with the XP CD in the drive. When you see the message on the boot
screen to "Press any key in order to boot from the CD," do so.

After loading drivers and files, you should be taken to a screen with
the following:

To Setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.
To Repair a Windows XP Installation using Recovery Console press R.
To Quit setup without installing Windows XP, press F3.

In your case, press ENTER.

Agree to the License agreement by pressing F8.

You will then be taken to a screen with two options.

To repair the selected Windows XP installation press R.
To continue installing a fresh copy of Windows XP without repairing,
press ESC.

This will bring you to a partition map where you
can delete, create and format partitions.
Select the drive you wish to format, delete the partition, then create a new
partition, format as desired and continue with XP installation.
 
Just to add a little to Michael's advice make sure you first delete then
recreate your primary partition before formatting and re-installing XP. If
you don't it leaves traces of the "old" XP and 2 XP's in your boot menu.
One can be removed afterwards using msconfig or editing boot.ini but better
to avoid it happening in the first place.
 
man_in@mac said:
I have a problem which was caused by the bl;aster worm,
whilts I was away we got attacked.
the upshot of all that was my son doing a re-installation
of xp on the machine.
Despite this the system is still showing all sorts of
gliches, I would like to wipe the hdd and start from
scratch but I cannot seem to find out how to do all that..
anyone help?

thanks
Click to expand...


You boot from the CD and do a clean install.
Click on or copy and paste the link below into your web browser address bar.
How to clean install XP.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
Format XP using NTFS or FAT.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/xpfaq.html#How1
--

Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm
 
Okay I tried that but it does not boot from the cd.

I have a dell which originally had xp home on we then
upgraded to xp pro using an m/s disc.

Both the Dell o.s. disk just sist in the cd drive and
nowt happens on reboot , same with the upgrade disk.

so what do I do next ??

thanks
 
Have you checked your BIOS to make sure your CD-ROM drive is first in line
in the boot sequence? When you boot the system, the first screen contains a
message about entering setup and a key to depress. Do so when you see it.
Then you'll need to navigate to boot sequence.

Second, when an operating system is already on the hard drive, a few screens
into the boot sequence, there's usually a message that you need to press any
key in order to boot from the CD, it's easy to miss but if you do miss it,
the system boots normally.

Third, if your CDs are recovery CD as opposed to actual XP CDs, they may not
be bootable. However, your message doesn't indicate that you can't get to
the XP desktop. If you can, boot the system, when finished booting, place
the XP CD in the drive, when the setup screen appears, start XP setup, when
the system reboots it should commence setup on its own as I described in my
original response, just follow the rest of those instructions for formatting
and as someone else suggested, it's usually best to delete and recreate the
partition something you can do from setup as indicated in my original post.
 
Okay I'll give that a go and see how we get on, thanks
for the guidance, forgot about the boot sequence thing
from the bios setup, getting too old for this ... lol

thanks again
 
Are you familiar with the setting the CMOS options? This is the option you
need access to, so you can select your boot order.
 
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