Clean Reinstall

[Guest]

I am a student, and got a student version of XP from my university, but it
comes in the form of a self-extracting executable I downloaded from their
website. I put it on a CD. If I reformat my c: drive, will I be able to
boot to the CD?

I've been trying to reformat and reinstall fresh for a week or so now with
no luck.

I tried installing windows on another partition, and then reformatting c:,
but it still won't let me because it says the c: drive contains the (system)
copy of the OS. Now I have two copies of Windows on my PC, and can't figure
out how to get either one off.

Can anyone please tell me how I can get back to a fresh, clean windows
install?

Thanks.

 

[Jerry]

Just copying the downloaded file to a CD does not in and of itself make the
CD bootable. That requires a separate program. Do a Google search on boot
CDs.

You could also boot from a floppy and then run the downloaded program from
the download folder.

 

[Guest]

I'm no expert but I've just finished reading a million articles on this group
that say you have to boot from CD! And they tell you how. Just do a group
search on reformatting.

hope this helps

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

What type of file does the self-extracting executable create?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Alex Nichol]

I am a student, and got a student version of XP from my university, but it
comes in the form of a self-extracting executable I downloaded from their
website. I put it on a CD. If I reformat my c: drive, will I be able to
boot to the CD?

I've been trying to reformat and reinstall fresh for a week or so now with
no luck.

You will need to extract it to a folder so there is a root collection
and an \i386 folder, and then burn it as a Boot CD. That means getting
the needed boot sectors; you could extract those from a borrowed regular
CD. See the method for 'Slipstreaming' SP2 at
http://forum.aumha.org/viewtopic.php?t=7262
without bothering with the actual slipstream part (unless you would like
to build a 'full SP2' into it, which would be a good idea if you have
that 266 MB version around