Can't get Vista off of my computer

[Guest]

When I try to do a backup my computer stops responding and as far as I can
tell there is no Windows. old folder. Why don't you have a separate cd disk
to remove Vista? Now I'm going to have to take my computer to get it repaired.

 

[Guest]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/933168

If the above is not the solution for you, set boot menu to 1:CD, insert XP
disk; reboot.

 

[Bill Yanaire]

Boot off the your XP CD. Make sure that the Boot device in the BIOS is set
to the CD/DVD drive. Delete the partition and start over.

Remember to backup your data prior to doing this.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

A disk to remove Vista?
Simply use the install media for whatever operating system you want
installed.

Exactly what do you want do do?
Get back to the previous operating system?
Did you upgrade?
From what to what?

If you upgraded, you will probably need to perform a Clean
Installation of whatever operating system you had previously
installed.

 

[David A. Spicer]

My experience has been, it's not that simple. I had to boot from a DOS boot
disk and use FDISK to properly remove the Vista Non-DOS NTFS partition. A
DOS boot disk can be obtained at www.bootdisk.com if needed. Otherwise
Partition Magic (in XP) showed the partition as being BAD. Apparently Vista
does something different in making the partition that XP can not undo. It
was all for nothing though. After a few days using XP, I missed Vista and
came back

 

[Guest]

The best way to get your data backed up is to download a Knoppix cd .iso and
burn it to a disk using burn4free at www.burn4free.com then put the disk in
and turn on the computer or reboot and after loading knoppix right click on
your hard drive on the deskop and click open. Then plug in your external Hard
drive and notice the new icon on the deskop. right click on this icon and
click mount, then right click again and hit change read write mode, and then
open that icon and copy and paste.

 

[Lang Murphy]

"Potential Windows Vista User"

The best way to get your data backed up is to download a Knoppix cd .iso
and
burn it to a disk using burn4free at www.burn4free.com then put the disk
in
and turn on the computer or reboot and after loading knoppix right click
on
your hard drive on the deskop and click open. Then plug in your external
Hard
drive and notice the new icon on the deskop. right click on this icon and
click mount, then right click again and hit change read write mode, and
then
open that icon and copy and paste.

<snip>

Knoppix doesn't need a driver to read NTFS partions?

Lang

 

[Lang Murphy]

When I try to do a backup my computer stops responding and as far as I can
tell there is no Windows. old folder. Why don't you have a separate cd
disk
to remove Vista? Now I'm going to have to take my computer to get it
repaired.

Backup is halting because it can't find the folder "windows.old?"

If you want to remove Vista, your "...separate CD disk to remove Vista" is
your XP install CD. Unless, of course, this is a new PC and you don't have
an XP install CD.

Sorry to hear that you have to "...take your computer to get it repaired."
Because backup is stalling on the "windows.old' folder?" Do you have any
restore points to which you can revert?

Lang

 

[Bill Yanaire]

I'm not sure why you say it's not that simple unless you had a corrupt
partition. I just removed Vista from a test box the other day. I changed
the BIOS to boot off of the CD drive, inserted a bootable XP disk. When XP
showed the drives, I highlighted the C partition, deleted it, then was able
to format it and install XP. Simple process. Maybe partition magic was
the problem. For most users who do vanilla installs, going back to XP is
simple.

 

[David A. Spicer]

I did exactly as you did, twice, and had no problem doing it. I was just
relating that when XP partitioned my Vista partitioned drive, the partition
was shown as bad in Partition Magic. Once I deleted the partition with FDISK
and then let XP partition the drive all was well.

 

[Guest]

NO knoppix does not need a driver to read NTFS partitons. Most of the time
the problem is located between the keyboard and chair. If all you want to do
is back up from an NTFS drive then just open it and copy and paste to the
other drive. If you want to write to NTFS then you need to right click the
drive (probably need to do this with FAT32 too) and confirm that you want to
enable writing to the drive. Thats it.

 

[Lang Murphy]

"Potential Windows Vista User"

NO knoppix does not need a driver to read NTFS partitons. Most of the time
the problem is located between the keyboard and chair. If all you want to
do
is back up from an NTFS drive then just open it and copy and paste to the
other drive. If you want to write to NTFS then you need to right click the
drive (probably need to do this with FAT32 too) and confirm that you want
to
enable writing to the drive. Thats it.

Yeah, my bad... I meant write, not read... but it seems, from your response,
that Knoppix will do that too. I vaguely remember there being an issue with
writing to NTFS drives from certain nix distros... maybe that's been fixed
across the board.

Lang