having reformat probs

mclaren_2

Im trying to take my laptop, from windows vista (longhorn) to windows XP but its not allowing me to. I put in the windows XP pro disk to the drive but it keeps on putting the xp load screen but the "install" option is grayed out. I put in windows 2000 pro disk but it says that it cant install cos a newer version of windows is installed. Now the vista i have installed, is a beta test version any ideas on how to put it back to XP?

thanks

C-3P0

Add/Remove programs in XP or Insert XP restart machine and boot from disk
and do a fresh install as long as you have saved any important files and drivers

Mr_Skint_2

C-3P0 wrote:

Add/Remove programs in XP or Insert XP restart machine and boot from disk
and do a fresh install as long as you have saved any important files and drivers

Yeah I would go with that........... :beer:

mclaren_2

C-3P0 wrote:

Add/Remove programs in XP or Insert XP restart machine and boot from disk
and do a fresh install as long as you have saved any important files and drivers

Wont allow me to boot from disk cos when i put in disk, rebooted it wouldnt allow me, it just came up with the normal 2 options "Windows Longhorn" and "windows xp pro" but when i choose xp it wont allow it and it runs longhorn anyway

Mr_Skint_2

Did you put a restore or XP disc in and try to start up, make sure you have boot from CD selected in the Bios usually F2 or Del on start up to get to the Bios.

mclaren_2

Mr_Skint wrote:

Did you put a restore or XP disc in and try to start up, make sure you have boot from CD selected in the Bios usually F2 or Del on start up to get to the Bios.

yeh, put the xp disk in the machine, went to bios (del) and boot from cd rom but still no good :S

Mr_Skint_2

Are you on a laptop with a floppy drive?

mclaren_2

Mr_Skint wrote:

Are you on a laptop with a floppy drive?

ma laptop has a floppy, yeh. im sure it can be done in DOS but i av no idea how lol. im usin ma desktop to view here tho

Mr_Skint_2

Maybe create a boot disk and go that way http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
or It might have to be a UBCD problem...... google UBCD.......

smcicr

if the UBCD is anything like the old win98 boot disk and you can get the machine to boot from the floppy (see no reason why it shouldn't) then you should be able to solve this fairly easily.

- boot from floppy
- get to a dos prompt and enter 'fdisk' (without the ' ')
- that should hopefully get you to a position where you can review and delete / reformat partitions on the machine.
- once that's done, set the bios info to boot from CD again, put the XP CD back in and restart