[quincyjones]

Hey, please help! I bought a new Dell Inspiron notebook (no floppy drive) with the wrong language windows xp, thinking that it wouldn't be a problem to change, specially seeing as I have XP on CD in english already. Allas, it seems Dell and microsoft have conspired to make it impossible!
I have long ago reached the point where I just want to format the hard disk and start from scratch but even this seems impossible.
Please help

Edited by quincyjones, 10 April 2006 - 12:06 PM.

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how are you trying to format and reinstall....what method are you trying...and why do you say you "can't" do it?

[dsenette]

how are you trying to format and reinstall....what method are you trying...and why do you say you "can't" do it?

[hedhunter]

Formatting the hard drive (if it is the master-- if you only have one then it is the master) is not possible by simply right-clicking and selecting "format". The reason is that you'd be erasing programs that are running (the OS), some of which are doing the erasing.

You need a boot disk--some cd that your computer can run off of (instead of the c drive) when you boot up. For you, the easiest way would probably be to use the XP installation cd. Put it in your cd drive and reboot; it should pick it up right away and during the installation you'll have the option of formatting the hard drive. If your system doesn't boot from the cd automatically, try hitting F12 as soon as the BIOS starts up, and you should have the ability to select boot options.

Good luck.

Oh, and don't forget to backup any files you want to keep... pretty obvious step but plenty of people forget.

[dsenette]

specially seeing as I have XP on CD in english already

also...where did you get that?

[quincyjones]

Hey, I have formatted many hard drives before and never had these problems. I ofcourse placed "boot from CD" at the top of the boot sequence. When I put in the OEM cd that came with the laptop, it has no effect at all, simply boots windows. When I try my old english XP CD (purchased with my PC), it begins booting from the CD then eventually says "windows has detected a problem and has been shutdown to prevent damage to your computer". I have tried creating a MSDOS boot cd (which is what I'd really like) but it has not worked

Edited by quincyjones, 10 April 2006 - 02:28 PM.

[dsenette]

you could use DBAN (Darek's Boot and Nuke) just search DBAN in google

[TakeBK]

I dont know if this helps

http://support.micro....com/kb/310994/


I am not that familar with laptops so I dont know if it is the same as a Desktop.But here goes.....

I don't know what model your Dell is but is it possible that it is not loading the drivers for the SCSI or SATA controller if that is what it is driven by.Usually the screen flashed by so fast you can see it but you have to tap F6 quick for the drivers to load before you start the setup.

I hate laptops for this reason LOL
No A: for the FDISK simple way...

Regards
TakeBK