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Hobbs · 09-07-2005, 10:10 AM

Here's the deal.....

If your system is new enough, and I mean new within the last 5-8 years, you can boot to your CD-Rom. You might have to go into your bios to set this up.

Enter the Bios: Turn you machine on and just keep hitting either the Delete key or the F2 key (depends on your system - Dells like F2 while other systems stick to the delete key) until you go into the bios page. Carefully poke around until you find something that addresses Boot Sequence and you can change the sequence of your boot devices (floppy, CD-rom, HD, ETC.).

*** Warning ***
Do not muck about in the BIOS screens and change things you don't understand. You could seriously f*** up you machine if you don't know what you are doing.

Boot to CD-ROM: Stick your brand new Windows XP Home Edition CD-Rom disk in the CD-rom Drive and reboot the system. If you system is set up correctly, you will boot into the setup routine of Windows XP.

"Blanking" you HD: Provided you backed everything up on you HD you can confidently erase your HD. During the setup sequence of windows, it will detect your existing OS partition (whether that is Win98, WinNT). It will ask if you want to delete that partion. If you answer "yes," it will erase your hard drive and perform a "clean" install.

System disk: Since you can boot directly to your Windows XP install disk, you don't need a system boot floppys. In fact, they don't even ship the boot system disks anymore. If you machine can't boot to a CD-ROM, you can make boot disks (either through the setup disk or you can download a bunch of files on Microslug's website), but in my experience, after you create the six of so disks, they never work. It never gets past disk 4 or five before failing.

Anything that I didn't explain clearly, just post up any questions.

Hope this helps.

09-07-2005, 10:10 AM	#2
Hobbs Professor for the school of ass-clownery Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Surprise! Posts: 404	Here's the deal..... If your system is new enough, and I mean new within the last 5-8 years, you can boot to your CD-Rom. You might have to go into your bios to set this up. Enter the Bios: Turn you machine on and just keep hitting either the Delete key or the F2 key (depends on your system - Dells like F2 while other systems stick to the delete key) until you go into the bios page. Carefully poke around until you find something that addresses Boot Sequence and you can change the sequence of your boot devices (floppy, CD-rom, HD, ETC.). * Warning * Do not muck about in the BIOS screens and change things you don't understand. You could seriously f* up you machine if you don't know what you are doing. Boot to CD-ROM: Stick your brand new Windows XP Home Edition CD-Rom disk in the CD-rom Drive and reboot the system. If you system is set up correctly, you will boot into the setup routine of Windows XP. "Blanking" you HD: Provided you backed everything up on you HD you can confidently erase your HD. During the setup sequence of windows, it will detect your existing OS partition (whether that is Win98, WinNT). It will ask if you want to delete that partion. If you answer "yes," it will erase your hard drive and perform a "clean" install. System disk:** Since you can boot directly to your Windows XP install disk, you don't need a system boot floppys. In fact, they don't even ship the boot system disks anymore. If you machine can't boot to a CD-ROM, you can make boot disks (either through the setup disk or you can download a bunch of files on Microslug's website), but in my experience, after you create the six of so disks, they never work. It never gets past disk 4 or five before failing. Anything that I didn't explain clearly, just post up any questions. Hope this helps. __________________ That's it! Send in the chimps! Last edited by Hobbs; 09-07-2005 at 01:50 PM.