[geeklove]

so i'm trying to reformat and of course ran into problems at the very first step. i think i changed the boot order correctly so that it boots from the cd drive. so i booted from the cd drive and as soon as the files are loaded and it says that the setup is going to start, my computer shuts down. tried three times, same thing. i'm no good with computers and i'm living in a pretty remote location where, sadly, computer geeks are sparse. i'd appreciate any tips. thanks!

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Boot the computer with the XP CD in the drive and allow setup to begin. When you come to the screen where you select the drive partition you should see the drive listed with all the space listed as unpartitioned. If the drive was in use previously, you'll need to delete all the existing partitions. To do this you'll have to hit the 'D' key followed by the 'L' key. The screen instructions will be visible to guide the process.

Once all the existing partitions are deleted the display will show the total unpartitioned disk space.

Hit the 'C' key to create a partition. If you only want one partition then hit enter and the entire disk space will be allocated to the C Drive, but it will be NTFS, assuming the drive is 32GB or larger. However, if you want to create several FAT32 partitions then do not hit the Enter key. Instead, hit 'Backspace' until the cursor moves to the first digit. Enter the size of the first partition to be created.

Repeat the create partition process as many times as you want till all available space is allocated to partitions.

Once all the partitions have been created, use the 'Up' arrow key to select the C drive partition to install XP on and select to format it with FAT32 if you are sure that NTFS isn't a viable file system in your situation.

After XP has been installed and is running, navigate to Disk Management and format the other partitions with either FAT32 or NTFS. This step is necessary before the partitions will be available for use.

Since this is a clean install and the drive has to be formatted, it only makes sense to use the tools that are available in XP.

You can also read this Microsoft article on using Fdisk, But it also thinks you will be using a floppy disk to format.

http://support.micro....com/kb/255867/

SRX660

[SRX660]

Boot the computer with the XP CD in the drive and allow setup to begin. When you come to the screen where you select the drive partition you should see the drive listed with all the space listed as unpartitioned. If the drive was in use previously, you'll need to delete all the existing partitions. To do this you'll have to hit the 'D' key followed by the 'L' key. The screen instructions will be visible to guide the process.

Once all the existing partitions are deleted the display will show the total unpartitioned disk space.

Hit the 'C' key to create a partition. If you only want one partition then hit enter and the entire disk space will be allocated to the C Drive, but it will be NTFS, assuming the drive is 32GB or larger. However, if you want to create several FAT32 partitions then do not hit the Enter key. Instead, hit 'Backspace' until the cursor moves to the first digit. Enter the size of the first partition to be created.

Repeat the create partition process as many times as you want till all available space is allocated to partitions.

Once all the partitions have been created, use the 'Up' arrow key to select the C drive partition to install XP on and select to format it with FAT32 if you are sure that NTFS isn't a viable file system in your situation.

After XP has been installed and is running, navigate to Disk Management and format the other partitions with either FAT32 or NTFS. This step is necessary before the partitions will be available for use.

Since this is a clean install and the drive has to be formatted, it only makes sense to use the tools that are available in XP.

You can also read this Microsoft article on using Fdisk, But it also thinks you will be using a floppy disk to format.

http://support.micro....com/kb/255867/

SRX660

[geeklove]

thanks srx660. i seem to have gotten past the issue of my computer turning off when it says the set up is going to begin. however, now it's saying that a bunch of files are not able to be loaded. i tried the option of skipping them but after 20 or 30 in a row weren't loadable, i gave up. do i need to buy a new copy of xp? i've reinstalled this copy at least 3 times. does it just crap out after a few reinstalls? is there anything i can do to "fix" it?

[SRX660]

Check to see if the CD is dirty or scratched. Scratches that can be felt with a finger run across means files may not be able to be read. To clean a disk i use a microfiber cloth with a corner dabbed into a mix of 50% water and 50% alcohol, wiping lightly straight out from the center to the outer edge. You will see when smudges are cleaned. If it continues to fail to load XP, try to borrow a XP disk from wherever you can.

SRX660