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Reinstalling Windows XP

2

Comments

  • Laz123
    Laz123 Posts: 1,742 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Also try taking out the cmos battery and replace after a few mins. This may just reset to default.
  • aj9648
    aj9648 Posts: 1,388 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts
    Laz123 wrote: »
    Also try taking out the cmos battery and replace after a few mins. This may just reset to default.

    Already done that - resets the bios and thats it
  • aj9648
    aj9648 Posts: 1,388 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts
    Its like a bomb this thing - cant even get it to to go into safe mode !!!
  • aj9648
    aj9648 Posts: 1,388 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts
    May have to just replace the hard drive !!!
  • Notmyrealname
    Notmyrealname Posts: 4,003 Forumite
    Find out who made the hard drive, download their utility for it and scrub the drive.
  • Laz123
    Laz123 Posts: 1,742 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Why can't you change boot sequence to boot from cd rom. Have you tried tapping F keys to give bootup options?
  • aj9648
    aj9648 Posts: 1,388 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts
    The HDD was made by hitachi - what kind of utility do you mean to scrub the drive?
  • Ectophile
    Ectophile Posts: 8,105 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    aj9648 wrote: »
    Its like a bomb this thing - cant even get it to to go into safe mode !!!

    The security software will have installed itself on the hard disk in front of Windows. The chances are, the whole disk is encrypted as well.

    The whole point of the software is that there's no way to get to Windows without the password.

    You need to erase the whole disk, which will wipe everything off it, then install Windows from scratch.

    The Windows XP disk should be bootable, if you can get the correct boot order set in the BIOS. If you can get to the Windows XP installer, then that may be able to reformat the drive for you.
    If it sticks, force it.
    If it breaks, well it wasn't working right anyway.
  • GunJack
    GunJack Posts: 11,895 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Or, if you CAN get it to boot from a CD, boot Hiren's and DBAN the hdd, then miniXP to format it, then re-install windows :)

    just a thought, do you know what the boot order's set to currently? e.g does the cd drive spin up before the hdd?
    ......Gettin' There, Wherever There is......

    I have a dodgy "i" key, so ignore spelling errors due to "i" issues, ...I blame Apple :D
  • retired1aswell
    retired1aswell Posts: 16 Forumite
    You could also remove the HDD and connect it as a second HDD in another computer and format it from there.
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