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July 11th, 2008 17:00
Need help with reinstalling Windows xp
Hello,
Our computer (OptiPlex GX520) crashed yesterday and we had a technician come and say to reinstall windows. Unfortunately he could not come back so I must do it myself. The cd is working fine and is asking me which area or drive to install windows (sorry i'm not great at the terminology). I am afraid to pick one because I am not sure if reinstalling Windows will erase everything that was on our computer before. There are 3 choices of where to install it and one has a large amount of space, one is very small and i believe the other was zero. I am also not sure if I should call someone in to try to back up our computer or something before I install.
Thanks in advance, Erin
Buckby Man
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July 12th, 2008 12:00
Did you just put the XP disc in while logged into XP or did you boot from the XP disc.
I have recently gone through this whole process and to boot from the XP disc is probably the best option because it gives a format of the C drive as an option.
Firstly go into the BIOS and make sure that the boot order is 1. CD drive, 2 Hard drive and 3 floppy drive (if applicable). I think to get to the BIOS it is F2 when powering up your machine. After windows has loaded put the XP disc in and cancel the booting up of it. Shut down and restart your machine. It should then start from the XP CD and go through the set up routine. It will give you the partitions to be formated. It is the large partition that you want, not the two small ones
I have :Dell Optiplex 170L