Wiping laptop??

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I am a bit of a beginner when it comes to this. I have a main C:\ and a back up drive.. It will allow me to format/partition the backup drive, but not the main C:\ the options are there but 'grayed' out so I can't click on them

My girlfriend is going to college, and I want us both to have accounts on there with our own passwords and folders to store our work on, but I cannot do this at the moment.

Someone said something about BIOS settings? I went onto the BIOS blue screen settings, and there was nothing executable there, just allows you to change and alter certain options, but nothing instantly allows you to re-install windows or anything

At the very very start however when I switch the laptop on, it gives me 2 options 1) Start Windows XP, 2) Boot windows XP from Disc
If I choose option 2, or leave it for over 10-15 secs, it will select option 2, and go into a blue error screen so I have to be quick to select option number 1 lol... I had a windows XP pro disc in the disc drive, and attempted to just do a re-install without doing a format of the C drive, but no such luck, I was just able to install components and some applications from the disc, but not install the actual OS of Windows XP from the disc - also says the disc is an older version of windows XP and wont allow me to install :S

Anyone any advise or anything that could help?

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

So you want to do a fresh install of XP right? What you need to do is delete all the current partitions so when you boot up with the XP install CD it will think the hard drive is empty and you can create a new partition and do a new install.

Download something like Super Fdisk. Burn the .iso to cd and boot with it. Delete all the partitions on your hard drive. Then boot with your XP cd and do a fresh install. Make sure you backup any data you have first as all data on the hard drive will be lost. Also some laptops have a hidden partition on the hard drive, probably best not to delete this, although if you have a proper XP install cd there will likely only be the Windows C: drive partition.

 

I'd do what Nightwalker suggests.

 

How would I delete partitions? This done in the system managment settings? or in BIOS?

 

Like Nightwalker says you should be able to boot with the super fdisk and delete the partitions with that, then reinstall from the XP disk. Make sure you backup the data.

You could boot with the XP disk and do a reinstall with that, you should be able to delete the partitions with that.

HTH

 

First - you can't delete the C: partition while you are using it! - doing this is usually a mistake - so it isn't allowed.

Next - if this is XP then just add her account to the laptop - no need to format things. Normally your docs and hers would be kept in separate areas, and you can each arrange the desktop how you like.

Did your XP disk come with the machine? If not, did you get a restore disk with it?

Make and model, and which windows?

Harry.

 

I tried to add an account, but it wouldn't let me do this. Laptop I had before would no problem. This is a former company laptop, so I think there is a lot of restrictions - even though I have the admin access password, it still doesn't allow me to add acounts for some reason. It's a Fuijusti Siemens (sp?) not sure on the model though but I thought a complete scrub of the harddrive and re-instilation would be best

 

Ah - it sounds as if they didn't re-image it when they let you have it. And I take it you didn't get a restore disk (or any disk) with it?

Almost certainly it has all the company policy restrictions still live - which is why you can't add users.

The problem with reinstalling windows on this machine will be getting the drivers for it. You will need to get the *exact* model and look for the drivers on the 'net.

Otherwise just booting from a *current* copy of the Windows (with the latest Service pack) and installing will wipe what is there. XP can delete most types of partitions as part of the installation system.

Harry.

 

No restore disk - although I did get an XP pro disc off of a friend, but it wont allow me to install - it says it's an older version of windows

 

If you want to install from that disk you need to delete the partitions off the hard drive first. Then the XP CD wont see the previous version of Windows and you can install it.

 

You need to be careful of 'XP Pro disk from a friend'! Does it have the full Microsoft logo on it - or is it just a copied CD?

And if it that old it could well be one of the original 'ripped' copies. If so it will invalidate itself when you put it on-line to patch it.

Try and get a current version of XP. It needn't be Pro if you aren't going to put it on a Domain.

Harry.