Re-Installing XP

[John]

I needed to reinstall XP and I went through the usual
steps and defragmented the hard drive. Then XP started to
load but when the screen informed me that there was 39
minutes left, a message opens that tells me "setup was
unable to retrive product identification of the system
you are installing. The windows xp media may be damaged."
The disc is in perfect condition,I got the Windows disc
with the computer. During setup I was not asked to enter
the product id, and now every time I start the computer
it just starts to finish setup and stops again with the
same message. Could sombody please help me.
Thanks John.

 

[Jenifer D. Scot]

If you have a 95 or 98 boot floppy handy, it is much
easier to set up a clean installation of XP this way,
just boot the system with the boot floppy mentioned
above, debug, or delete the current FAT, or NTFS
partition ( FAT 32 will list as FAT 32, NTFS will list as
NON DOS partition, delete the partition with fdisk from
the boot floppy. Reset up a FAT 32 pertition with the
boot floppy, then after completing that procedure, open
the BIOS on reboot (usually del, F2, or if a compa F10)
and set the cd rom as first boot device, insert your XP
cd while changing those settings, then save the changes,
when the system reboots, the XP set up will begin, then
you can choose how you want XP to format the drive, you
should get a clean install, one precaution: make certain
ALL external devices including printers are disconnected
from the system ( you only need the monitor, mouse and
keyboard connected).

 

[Guest]

what do you do if you dont have a 95 or 98 floppy, how do
you do a clean reinstall just by itself