help cant get back to windows

[Guest]

hi i tried to install an oem copy of xp home over pro and realised as many
have here that you cant unless you reformat the harddrive.I have a couple of
questions.Number one. I inserted the new home disc and made it through to the
stage where it asks you to delete the partition.How do i cancel the
installation and get my original pro to reload?im stuck on the windows home
install blue screen.( ididnt delete the partion so pro should still be on
there right?) also can i install home over xp with out a floppy drive? i know
that you have to make a boot disc, but i dont have a floppy drive on the
computer i want to do this on,also i have been think about upgrading to a
better harddrive any way would it work (easier)to buy a new hard drive and
install the new oem home on it? any help would be much appreciated. thanks.

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

If you have valuable data on the hard drive that requires saving, place the
drive in another computer and recover the data to CD.. then place the drive
back in the original machine and restart the install process, this time
deleting the partition..

The plan to get another hard drive and do a clean install of XP Home to it
is a sound decision in as much as you will be able to recover data from the
old installation at your leisure, and you will have a back up drive for the
future after data recovery and a format of the old drive.

For all that you will ever need to know regarding XP installation, go to

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

hi i tried to install an oem copy of xp home over pro

May I ask why? Are you aware that XP Professional is a superset of Home?
Professional has features not in Home, but there's nothing in Home that's
not also in Professional, and therefore no possible advantage to doing this.

and realised as
many have here that you cant unless you reformat the harddrive.

That's correct, for two reasons.

1. Going from Professional to Home is a downgrade and downgrades are never
suppoerted.

2. OEM copies of Windows can only do clean installations.

I have
a couple of questions.Number one. I inserted the new home disc and
made it through to the stage where it asks you to delete the
partition.How do i cancel the installation and get my original pro to
reload?

I'm not absolutely sure, but I would thing think that if you just removed
the CD and rebooted you'd be OK. I don't *think* anything has been done to
the hard drive yet.

im stuck on the windows home install blue screen.( ididnt
delete the partion so pro should still be on there right?) also can i
install home over xp with out a floppy drive?

No floppy drive is required. Why do you think it is?

i know that you have to
make a boot disc,

For what? No, you don't.

but i dont have a floppy drive on the computer i
want to do this on,also i have been think about upgrading to a better
harddrive any way would it work (easier)to buy a new hard drive and
install the new oem home on it?

Yes, you can certainly buy a new drive and install Home on it. The
installation is neither eaiser nor harder