K
Ken Blake, MVP
I tried to reinstall from my Reinstallation CD today but got a message that
it could not do it as the version of Windows on the computer was newer than
the one on the CD. However , it told me how I could continue anyway. To ask a
dumb question, should I just continue with the reinstallation even though the
version on my CD is older than what is on my machine?
You get that message when you have a service pack installed that's not
on your CD.
However, more important, if you get that message, you are doing the
reinstallation incorrectly. You are trying to run it from within
Windows, and that's wrong. When you do the installation correctly (see
below) it begins by formatting the drive, so it doesn't care at all
what's on the drive, or even whether *anything* is.
To reinstall correctly, 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://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do_i_install_windows_xp.htm
or here http://windowsxp.mvps.org/XPClean.htm
or here http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm