"Ben Myers" wrote in message
...
elodie wrote:
On Jan 10, 12:00 am, Ben Myers wrote:
elodie wrote:
On Jan 9, 12:41 pm, elodie wrote:
On Jan 9, 10:29 am, Ben Myers wrote:
elodie wrote:
Hi everyone,
I have a dell pc with windows vista on it. I want to install windows
xp instead.
Last night I thought I would use my windows xp installation disk to
wipe out the existing windows vista from the hard drive, format the
hard drive and install windows xp instead. But the formatting
process
stopped at 10%. I thought that the formatting was just taking long
and
went to bed. But this morning the formatting process was still stuck
at 10%. Now when I reboot, all I can do is access the BIOS. I
understand that what I did was not very smart.
I would much appreciate it if someone could indicate what I should
do.
Thanks in advance.
Having the computer stuck at 10% while formatting may or may not be
the
sign that the hard drive is failing. Here is what I suggest:
1. It is likely that the formatting operation wiped out the Dell
diagnostic partition, but maybe it did not. As a quick check in hope
that the diagnostics are still there, power up the system, press the
F12
key and select Dell diagnostics. If the diagnostics actually start
up
(rather than the system simply hanging), run the hard drive
diagnostics.
2. If the Dell diagnostics do not run, reboot, press F2 to enter the
CMOS setup, and determine the manufacturer of the drive. Finally,
download and run the drive manufacturer's free diagnostics.
3. If you want to bypass the disk diagnostics, download COPYWIPE and
use
it to wipe the drive clean, and then install XP.
Google is your friend, not Microsoft's. Use it to find the software
you
need... Ben Myers
Thanks a lot for the help. I will be following your instructions.
I was able to access the diagnostics. It said that the hard drive is
functionning.
So it is not clear to me why I was not able to format the hard drive
using the installation CD of Win XP. Thanks again for the help.
At this point, I would suggest one of several free bits of utility
software to surgically remove the Vista partition from your hard drive,
while leaving the diagnostic partition and maybe a recovery partition
(?) in place. Vista partitions are different than XP NTFS partitions,
and I suspect this to be why the XP format won't work.

Cute Partition Manager and Ranish Partition Manager could probably
delete the Vista partition, altho Ranish is old enough that it would not
identify the Vista partition as such, but rather as some vague (and very
large!) partition of unknown type. Google for one or the other, read
instructions, and use... Ben Myers

Thanks a lot for all the help. I used a different Windows installation
CD and it worked. That was easy enough. But I am not sure what the
problem was exactly.

Just strictly a wild-assed guess, but if your system has a SATA drive and
you tried to install Windows XP using a Dell "reinstallation CD" with only
Service Pack 1, this would explain the difficulty.

Microsoft acquiesced to SERIOUS pressure from its major OEMs to do
something it claims it never does, namely, to add capabilities to a base
release with a service pack. So XP SP2 is the first version of Windows to
have built-in support for SATA drives... Ben Myers

So, what you are saying is that the only way to get Windows XP onto a SATA
drive is with a disc that has SP2 on it? Reason I am asking, is I am about
to upgrade the drive in my computer to SATA from PATA (has both
connections), and wanted to remove the PATA completed. The copy of windows
XP that I have is an orginal retail disc with no SPs. Any suggestions?