Messy Windows Reinstallation (2)

Question

Sorry that first post was illegible, here it goes again with line brakes: Hello After getting fed up with all the small glitches and bugs that inevitably build up on a PC over three years as well as to resolve a driver failure that had occurred after a failed update of my graphics card driver, I decided to reinstall windows XP on my dell PC. I intended to do a clean reinstallation and wipe the hard drive clean in the process, as I had followed this method when updating an old pc to XP in the past, so I backed up all my files booted up windows XP inserted the dell reinstallation CD and selected 'New installation'. Every thing went fine until the windows installation rebooted itself and got on to the disk partition menu. I tried to delete the existing partition so as to create a new one. As I was not allowed to do so, I resorted to installing windows within the same partition (I think this turned out to be a mistake). The installation finished successfully and every thing is working perfectly well (I am writing this e-mail on the machine in question), however when I next booted up my pc I found that I was asked to choose which copy of windows XP home edition to load. As it turns out, only one is fully operable as the other entry refers to the old OS which has been partly over written. When I then inspected my hard drive through windows I found that nun of the old OS' folders had been deleted, and that the installation had merely written over the ones it needed to in order to install. Also I now need to reactivate my copy of XP because Microsoft thinks I am running two copies of the same licence. In short I have made a mess of my hard drive rather than wiping it clean as I originally intended. I tried to reinstall windows again, but this time quit the installation on the partition menu as I found it impossible to delete the messed up partition and had only about 4GB to create an new one. This now added a new option to the select OS menu offering me to continue running the interrupted installation (yes, I know, this is actually getting comical). A bit of Googling on the net gave me a way to resolve the boot problem where I was asked to select which copy of XP to run (a working, a non working, and yet to be installed copy). The boot.ini tab of the System Configuration Utility (run > type in 'msconfig'). However I suspect that this has not actually solved the problem, merely created a work around by forcing the working copy of XP to boot rather than the others. My final attempt to solve the problem was to go into the bios, set the CD driver to before the hard drive in the boot sequence and throw in the windows reinstallation disc ad see if by installing straight from the CD rather than first booting windows I could format the hard drive and get a brand spanking new installation of the thing. This is how I once upgraded another pc to XP. Alas, however, the pc went straight to booting XP, courtesy of the boot.ini buy pass I think. I checked the bios to find that I had saved the new boot sequence settings. I then found that I could actually deactivate the changes to the boot.ini sequence (this is why I think this is a workaround rather than a solution the OS boot menu problem. After deactivating the boot.ini option, however, I found that sticking the windows reinstallation CD back in the pc and rebooting only made the unfinished reinstallation of XP start up again and still I have no control over the hard drive partitions. Is the fact that the CD I have is a recovery CD rather than a full copy of XP stopping me from making a full clean installation and how can I get a clean installation of windows XP using my supplied dell reinstallation CD? Thanks in advance,

Annie70 · Answer

If you want to do a clean install you must boot to the CD drive first.  Check out these instructions for doing a clean install of XP.

Annie70 · Answer

Also see these instructions for a clean install.

tommyo1954 · Answer

If it's any help, when I reinstalled XP for my first time I followed the tutorial listed by aps above; the 2nd one listed there....(Paul Thurreault's website..) That was my first attempt at reinstalling so if I could do it, anyone can, lol:smileyvery-happy:  I'm not the brightest LED bulb in the batch...   Anyways, make certain that you are indeed booting from that Windows reinstall CD. That is very critical...  and that was what briefly balled me up a bit during my reinstall.   It looks like you created a 2nd partition by mistake. You'll probably want to start over and delete the existing partition(s). And it looks like you correctly have your CD drive as first boot device, so you should be all set in that regard. Insert the Windows reinstall CD and close the tray....  then reboot the computer..... you should then get the black screen with the wording  'press any key to boot from CD'  prompt.  Hit any key, and you should be on your way to a reinstall.   When I did my reinstall, I chose to  ( press D at the proper time when it prompts you)   delete the existing partition.  because I wanted everything wiped...   Good luck; hope you get Windows reinstalled..   ASP, I apologize for budding in... I maybe should have not budded in here because you were already helping; my apologies...

Annie70 · Answer

Tommy-no problem. I am sure the poster appreciates all the advice he can receive.

Windows General

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