[nashville-bound]

Oh fine. I ended up just copying what I had left to some CD-Rs. It was just music files and some digital pics. I didn't get a chance to get a USB flash drive anyway so it all worked out.

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Check you have all the product keys and installation CD's for anything you want to run on the PC

Once you have those, set the PC to boot from the CD ROM Drive, (keep tapping delete as you boot until it enters set up, set the boot order to CD ROM Drive then hard drive, press F10 to save, type Y to confirm), put the DBan CDR in and press enter, choose autonuke, you type autonuke, press enter then confirm, and then find something to do for 8 hours

[Retired Tech]

Check you have all the product keys and installation CD's for anything you want to run on the PC

Once you have those, set the PC to boot from the CD ROM Drive, (keep tapping delete as you boot until it enters set up, set the boot order to CD ROM Drive then hard drive, press F10 to save, type Y to confirm), put the DBan CDR in and press enter, choose autonuke, you type autonuke, press enter then confirm, and then find something to do for 8 hours

[nashville-bound]

Okay. After 8 hours passes will it tell me to take out the cd-r? Do I then install Windows from my CD immediately after?

[Retired Tech]

It has 3 passes and shows progess to 100% then lets you know it is finished, so you just remove the DBan CDR, replace it with the XP CD and press ctrl + alt + delete to reboot, though pressing the reset button won't be a problem, as it loads, look for press any key to load from CD, press enter and follow the prompts, you want to use the default NTFS format, not quick, so another couple of hours for that, or approximately 1 minute per GB of drive size

This is important, when it starts the XP Format, check it is creating a RAW1 partition on C, if the drive letter is any different, press the reset button and it will default to C

This is for XP Home, you might want to look through it

http://www.theelderg...l_-_graphic.htm

Or this if you have XP Pro

http://www.theelderg...l_-_graphic.htm

Post back if you have any problems

Hope it goes well

[Retired Tech]

After you install XP, install the firewall then the anti virus programmes, update them, run a scan then use Microsoft Update and get all critical ones and SP2 before loading any other programmes

[nashville-bound]

Hi Keith! Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you but there was an unexpected glitch. Using DBAN and reinstalling Windows was no problem. As it turns out the drivers cd that was sent to me with the computer when I bought it was defective. And I needed it to reinstall my DSL cd. I spent 2 hours on the phone with the guys at Dell for them only to tell me that they could send me a new drivers cd which by the way was backordered and might not be compatible because my computer is 2 years old. So i ended up downloading the drivers off the internet from another computer and finally reinstalling everything today. Installing SP2 was fine and Ive had absolutely no problems after using DBAN.

Thank you so so much for all your help Geeks to go is the best!

Edited by nashville-bound, 05 July 2006 - 06:38 PM.

[Retired Tech]

Thank You for letting me know