Quote Originally Posted by phishhead
well first off boot to your bios and change it to boot from cd...then bootup with the cd into the installation...you will get to a screen where you can choose the destination partition. there is an option to choose the partition then press the d to del the partition...then your drive will become unallocated space then choose to install xp on the unallocated space it will prompt you to format. choose format in ntfs and after that its just follow the prompts and watch the pretty screens. **NOTE**backup all your personal stuff and drivers to cd first. also any isp info you might need prior to wiping it out.
=========

OK. Yesterday I did what the site www.michaelstevenstech.com called a Repair install. It turned out to be a waste of time. This is how it went...I will copy what screens said and what I did. And ask a question about the 2 options at the point where I want to be sure the #2. choice is the one I should make to wipe my HD clean. So here goes:

My bios is currently booting in this order: CDROM--floppy--HD.

Yesterday then, with my XP CD in the CDROM drive, I started the computer up. I got 2 choices from the bios:

1. Boot from Atapi CDROM
2. Press any key to boot from CD.

I chose #2

It said: "Setup is inspecting your system." Then came a blue screen called "Windows Setup." Setup loaded oh, 15-20 files real fast and then announced it was starting Windows. A "Welcome to setup" screen gave me following choices.

1. To set up now, press ENTER.
2. To Repair an XP installation using Recovery Console, press R.
3. To quit without installing XP, press F3.

Well, I chose #1 so I hit ENTER.
Next I was told to hit F8 to satisfy the EULA agreement. I did that.

Then my one Windows installation C:\Windows was found. It was hi lit already.

I was also given 2 options:

1. To repair selected installation, press R.
2. To continue installing a fresh copy without repairing, press ESC.

K, Phishhead, at this point I, of course, chose #1.

Question 1:

Now to wipe my HD clean, I should choose #2? Do you know for a fact that that WILL wipe out or render totally unusable my HD?

Question #2

Now I just continue following instructions, the XP disk stays in the drive and after it tells me to do whatever re repartitioning or not, it will then start to reinstall XP or direct me to make the choice to reinstall Windows?

Question #3.

Once XP is installed, then I can boot normally and just go ahead and reload all my drivers and programs, etc?

These questions may seem obvious but I don't want to screw things up and have an inoperable computer and you won't be here looking over my shoulder. And I've have run into situations where I am simply unsure as to which choices I should make. I've spent too much already on them.