[bpeale]

when my keyboard started acting up this past weekend, my daughter got a wild hair and reinstalled windows. problem is that now there are two of them and neither one of them works at all. i need to know how to reformat the hard drive. when i go to disk management & right click on the drive, the format option is grayed out. the problem with the keyboard is still there ... some letters work & some don't, so that's a big problem when trying to reformat. there is nothing wrong with the keyboard. it's working properly ... on a second keyboard, the same keys would not work even tho the keyboard was new. i just think something in windows is screwed up badly, and with 2 copies of windows xp, i now need to just reformat & start over. can someone help me with this problem?

Barbara

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If your machine is a custom built machine that has a Full Windows XP disc, you will have to boot off that and through the setup program in there it will let you delete any partitions created and let you make one copy of windows be installed on the machine.

here is a good guide on how to do that : Windows XP Clean Install Guide

The other option is if your machine is a branded machine, ie Dell, Emachine, Packard Bell, hp...etc. They normally come with a restore program which is automated and is normally built onto the hard drive or in the form on cds. This will wipe all the info off and put it back to the way it was when you first purchased it.


hope this helps.

[Alex_Harris]

If your machine is a custom built machine that has a Full Windows XP disc, you will have to boot off that and through the setup program in there it will let you delete any partitions created and let you make one copy of windows be installed on the machine.

here is a good guide on how to do that : Windows XP Clean Install Guide

The other option is if your machine is a branded machine, ie Dell, Emachine, Packard Bell, hp...etc. They normally come with a restore program which is automated and is normally built onto the hard drive or in the form on cds. This will wipe all the info off and put it back to the way it was when you first purchased it.


hope this helps.

[bpeale]

as disgusted with this machine as i am (its a gateway p4), i am thankful for your reply and the directions to possibly fix it. will be working on it this weekend. will let you know how it comes out.

Barbara

[gerryf]

the odd part about this is that the same keys on two keyboards on two OSs are behaving the same way.

That is...most odd.

Is this a usb or ps2 keyboard? Do you have another around that is different?

Which keys do not work?

There are macro programs that intercept key presses and can cause odd behavior, but since you have two distinct OSs, it should not be an issue.

Since they keyboard works, it may be the actual port...but the problem here is a ps2 port only uses one wire for data...and one would expect all or nothing with the keyboard.

Do me a favor

start > run
devmgmt.msc
<enter>

go to keyboard, double click, what does it say at the top of the general tab?