[cichlidkeeper91]

I am trying to reinstall windows xp and It says that I have a newer version of windows than the disk. Then it says I nedd to restart computer boot comp. from disk a download it from there. help.

[vince369]

**BACK UP ALL IMPORTANT FILES!
**REINSTALLING WINDOWS REQUIRES YOU TO FORMAT YOUR WHOLE DRIVE, REGUARDLESS OF PARTITION

you may want to print this or view on another comp

1) Enter your BIOS and change the boot sequence to CD as first and HDD as second. [[make sure your XP CD is in the CD drive before proceding.]]

2) save and exit BIOS

3) watch the screen as it may prompt you to press a key to run XP from disk

4) Select "Intall Windows XP", not repair or that other thing

**not sure about this part, vague memory**
**the options are not worded exactly as on the BIOS**

5) Select the partition/drive you want to install windows in (should be the drive your older/newer windows in on now) and select "delete partition". it will ask you 2 or 3 times whether it is the right drive. (ALL DATA WILL BE LOST)

6) Select the same drive and select "Create partition"
NOTE: the partition will leave out a percentage of your space

**do you even need to create partition?**

7) Select the same drive again and select "Install windows"
You computer will now format the drive and install Windows. Should be straight forward from there

This is vaguely the steps i took to isntall my windows a couple of times..
Please wait for others to make corrections or confirmation as i'm not 100% sure of the sequence above.

[cichlidkeeper91]

how do you enter your bios

[hillbillybob]

Originally posted by vince369
**BACK UP ALL IMPORTANT FILES!
**REINSTALLING WINDOWS REQUIRES YOU TO FORMAT YOUR WHOLE DRIVE, REGUARDLESS OF PARTITION

you may want to print this or view on another comp

1) Enter your BIOS and change the boot sequence to CD as first and HDD as second. [[make sure your XP CD is in the CD drive before proceding.]]

2) save and exit BIOS

3) watch the screen as it may prompt you to press a key to run XP from disk

4) Select "Intall Windows XP", not repair or that other thing

**not sure about this part, vague memory**
**the options are not worded exactly as on the BIOS**

5) Select the partition/drive you want to install windows in (should be the drive your older/newer windows in on now) and select "delete partition". it will ask you 2 or 3 times whether it is the right drive. (ALL DATA WILL BE LOST)

6) Select the same drive and select "Create partition"
NOTE: the partition will leave out a percentage of your space

**do you even need to create partition?**

7) Select the same drive again and select "Install windows"
You computer will now format the drive and install Windows. Should be straight forward from there

This is vaguely the steps i took to isntall my windows a couple of times..
Please wait for others to make corrections or confirmation as i'm not 100% sure of the sequence above.

That's pretty close. I can't remember the exact command, but you will need to delete the partition and then to install you will need to create a partition. For WinXP, you need a min of 2 Gb to install. It's at this time that you can set some HDD space back in case you would like to install another operating system.
*cough* linux *cough*
You then go through the two hour long process of installing Windows XP.

As for entering BIOS, it depends on your system, and it should flash what you need to press on the screen during POST. I've generally seen to press delete or F1. If for some reason that you can see it or it doesn't display, you could alway flood the keyboard buffer. When in BIOS, look for something like boot sequence or boot order. That will be where you change the order in which BIOS looks to drives for a viable operating system.

[vince369]

thx for confirming, hillbillybob =]

[cichlidkeeper91]

Yea i see the part when it says press any key to run disk. So I press it and it goes to the windows loading part then to selct a profile to load up.