reformatting

[Pam]

Hello, all. I am fixing to reformat my windows xp machine before donating
it elsewhere. I have xp pro. What do I need to know about 1) reformatting
2)reinstalling xp pro and 3) reassigning the license to xp, if I can do
that?

Many thanks.

Pam

 

[Steve C. Ray]

If I understand correctly you are going to donate the computer with XP, but
you want to clean the drive first. If so, boot from the XP CD and follow
instructions to format and install XP. Be sure to give the XP CD and the
Product Key with the computer. You don't have to register XP, the new owner
can do that if they want. You won't have to reassign XP.

 

[xfile]

For the first two - you can insert CD and boot from it as a clean
installation but for (3), you would have only one license for you to use
either in the new system or the one you are going to donate.

You cannot assign a license to both systems.

 

[Pam]

Great. Thanks, Steve. It sounds easy enough. I'll be back if it isn't!
Pam

 

[Pam]

xfile, thanks. Since the new system came with an OEM version of XP, I'm
just going to reformat and install and send it on with the cd's and
documentation.
I'm off to give it a go.
Pam

 

[Steve C. Ray]

You are welcome, Pam. Post back if you have any problems.

 

[Pam]

Steve, I think that all is well. I had a bit of a trouble getting it to
boot to the cd and finally tried to boot to setup to double check the bood
sequence for the cd rom (which I had checked before) and somehow I got where
I wanted. The dialog, though, sounded like I was going to install a second
version of xp on the same partition, but as far as I can tell, that didn't
happen. What fun.

Again, thanks! These groups are worth their bandwidths in gold, and many
times over.
Pam

 

[Please reply to news group.]

Just so you know, if you have confidential info on that computer,
reformatting won't make it so the file can't be recovered necessarily.
You should get a program such as Norton SystemWorks to wipe the file off
the disk PERMANENTLY.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In Please reply to news group." <"Please reply to news group.

Just so you know, if you have confidential info on that computer,
reformatting won't make it so the file can't be recovered

necessarily.


For almost everyone but an international spy, reformatting and
reinstalling Windows comes close enough. Although it may still be
possible to get data off the drive, it requires a very determined
person who is willing to spend very high sums of money for a
service which uses special recovery techniques.

I don't have anything on my computer that anyone would go to that
much trouble and expense for; reformatting and reinstalling would
be good enough for me.

You should get a program such as Norton SystemWorks to wipe the file
off the disk PERMANENTLY.

Even such software isn't necessarily perfect. The US government
destroys hard drives in a furnace if they contain really
sensitive data.

 

[Please reply to news group.]

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I wasn't sure how easy it would be
for people to steal info off a formated hard drive. However, it doesn't
make much difference to me because I don't have anything of value on my
computer.

That's interesting that the government burns hard drives with extremely
sensitive data.