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