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Need to reinstall WinXP on netbook

Started by philbert2501 , Dec 22 2012 07:02 PM

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#1
philbert2501

Posted 22 December 2012 - 07:02 PM

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35 posts

I've got an Acer Aspire One netbook running WinXP. I'd like to format the hard drive and reinstall the OS, but of course the little computer doesn't have an optical drive. I've discovered from some googling that I can reinstall using files in the i386 folder found on the drive, but I'm assuming that in order for it to actually format the drive, I'd have to have a bootable CD or flash drive.

I don't have any external cd drives handy and I don't know whether that would work or not anyway, but what I've read indicates that it should be possible to set up a bootable flash drive that I can install from. Thing is, I'm not sure what would be the best way to do this. I don't know if I should use the files from the netbook drive, make the flash drive from a CD, or if it makes any difference.

Any assistance would be appreciated