Formatting and reloading OS

[Guest]

How do I format a harddrive and reload the OS? I have already backed up the
data I need to save onto CD's, but I have lost the software for my Rom drive.
Confusion is rampant... I have a harddrive failure on this HD, and have only
managed to save the data by slaving it to another computer ... please help.

 

[T. Waters]

How do I format a harddrive and reload the OS? I have already backed
up the data I need to save onto CD's, but I have lost the software
for my Rom drive. Confusion is rampant... I have a harddrive failure
on this HD, and have only managed to save the data by slaving it to
another computer ... please help.

Dear Mr. Delerium:
What do you mean, exactly, by "I have lost the software for my Rom drive"?
Do you mean that you have no copy of XP?
This may clear up your confusion:
If you have lost your copy of XP, you will have to borrow a copy of the same
type (Home or Pro, Retail or OEM) as your Product Key label requires.
UNLESS: You received your name-brand computer with XP already loaded by the
manufacturer. In that case, read your manual and contact your manufacturer
if necessary.

 

[Guest]

No, I lost the software CD that came with the CD Rom drive when I bought it.
I still have my XP disks.

 

[T. Waters]

Usually driver software (if that is what it was) for a CD-ROM is so basic
that XP can usually provide the driver from its native collection of
drivers. Is your CD-ROM nonfunctional at this time?

 

[Guest]

When I was trying to set up the harddrive with the other motherboard, I got a
harddrive failure message, and after that it would not read the Rom drive or
the floppy drive or anything. That's when I took out the harddrive and slaved
it on another computer, recovering the data. Now i want to format that drive,
whether on the primary computer or the other motherboard... but I have never
done it before.

I had both 20 gig harddrives in the same computer, the XP drive as Primary,
a Win98 drive as slave (used mostly to store data). The Win98 drive I had
removed from an old CPU/Motherboard, installing it in a newer CPU as slave
only to access data files and use it as a storage bin for new data, which
worked fine. On the odd occasion when the XP drive had troubles, I could boot
to the WIN98 drive and go onto the net to get to Help and Support, or to
download drivers etc. as necessary.

We were recently given yet another old CPU with monitor, printer, keyboard
etc, and I wanted to return the Win98 drive to it's old CPU and hook it up
with the other peripherals as a word processor/games computer. The CPU we
were given is only a 188, so it's a boat anchor as far as i'm concerned. The
old one we already had is at least a 488, so for WP and simple solitaire
games, it's fine. That's why I wish to re-hook up the second 20 gig drive to
it's original motherboard... unfortunately i disconnected and installed the
WRONG drive to the 488, so I switched them again. After that switch, when I
reinstalled the WinXP drive in the 800mHz CPU, i got the HD failure message,
so I took it out AGAIN and reinstalled the Win98 drive, upgrading it to XP
(because I barely remember where to find anything in 98), and I slaved the
original XP drive to the second XP drive to recover the data. Now I wish to
take the original XP drive, format it, load Win98 onto it, and then load
MSWord onto it and some of our older PC games that won't run on XP.

I sincerely hope this makes sense to you, and you can now lead me into the
land of formatting harddrives and loading OS's. Thanks for taking the time...
it's greatly appreciated!!

Carpe

 

[izzy]

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

 

[Michael Stevens]

In

How do I format a harddrive and reload the OS? I have already backed
up the data I need to save onto CD's, but I have lost the software
for my Rom drive. Confusion is rampant... I have a harddrive failure
on this HD, and have only managed to save the data by slaving it to
another computer ... please help.

Click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into the address box
if using the web based newsgroup.
Format XP
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/format_XP.htm
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm

 

[John Barnett MVP]

Visit my web site http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org Click the Win XP Faq
button and take a look at questions 7, 41, and 85

 

[Bruce Chambers]

How do I format a harddrive and reload the OS? I have already backed up the
data I need to save onto CD's, but I have lost the software for my Rom drive.
Confusion is rampant... I have a harddrive failure on this HD, and have only
managed to save the data by slaving it to another computer ... please help.

Simply boot from the WinXP installation CD. You'll be offered the
opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part of the
installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the order of boot
devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)

HOW TO Install Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;316941

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm


--

Bruce Chambers

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both at once. - RAH

 

[Paul Knudsen]

How do I format a harddrive and reload the OS? I have already backed up the
data I need to save onto CD's, but I have lost the software for my Rom drive.
Confusion is rampant... I have a harddrive failure on this HD, and have only
managed to save the data by slaving it to another computer ... please help.

Just a side note: if your drive worked on another computer, maybe the
problem isn't the drive. I'd make sure before going to all the
trouble of loading the OS.