OT: Major Computer Help Needed.

[LionsFan10]

Hi,

I have a major computer problem that I'm not sure I know how to over come. I have a 2.6ghz P4 with 512 MB RAM which was running Windows XP Home Edition, I recieved Pro edition for my birthday which I thought would help out my computer a little bit and I've heard is quite a bit more stable. Well part way through the install of Windows XP Pro (I did the upgrade, which was recommended) I'm getting an error and now it doesn't look like I can go back to Home Edition or restore any of my old files. I don't know how to wipe a hard drive clean so I think I'm sunk unless I can get some help from anyone on the board here.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. :( :( :(

[LionsFan10]

Can anyone help me, even if it's re-format my hard drive? Anything to help me get back to Windows XP Home so I can start fresh? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Peregrine]

When you reboot your PC what do you get, do you get into Windows at all or does it just hang up at some point?

[LionsFan10]

No, I can get into XP Pro but there's a whole bunch of problems now. I'd much rather just re-format and go back to XP Home, is there an easy way to go about this and if so can somebody explain it to me please?

[TredWel]

Insert the XP Home CD, and restart the computer. The computer should reboot into the XP Home Installation. One of the first steps of Windows Installation is to re-partition and re-format the computer.

[LionsFan10]

Tried that, it completly skips the Home CD in the drive and starts booting XP Pro.

[TredWel]

Restart the computer, and hit F1, or F2, or Delete, or some combination of the three. You want to get into your BIOS settings.

Once there, look for something in the gist of "Boot Priority". It lists the order of devices that the computer uses to look for something to load. It usually is of the order of "A: / Removable Devices" - "Hard Drive" - "CDROM Drive" . Move the CDROM Drive above the Hard Drive in the priority. Save the settings, and reboot.

[andy m]

you need to go into the settings on boot up (press F12 or DEL or whatever your BIOS requires), and set it so that the CD-ROM is the first boot device.

[LionsFan10]

Going to try this out now, be back soon. If all else fails, how much would Best Buy charge someone to just wipe out your hard drive and re-install a OS that you have? It can't be too much right?

[andy m]

if it's anything like the stores in the UK, it'd be cheaper to by a brand new hard drive than get a store to do that.

[LionsFan10]

Ah, thanks much.

[hhiipp]

You made the ultimate mistake in changing operating systems... you tried to do an upgrade instead of starting fresh to begin with. I and many other pc people would -never- recommend doing an upgrade.

Anyway, if you make the change to your bios settings of which device to boot off, you still have to watch your PC while it boots cause it will likely ask you to press a key if you want to boot from the CD.

Good luck.

[LionsFan10]

Damn, I knew I shouldn't have done that. Okay I went into the BIOS and made my CD-ROM the first boot priority. Now, can I go backwards from Win XP Pro to Home or is this going to be a problem?

[Draft Dodger]

a couple things -

first, it's a myth that XP Pro is more stable than XP Home. They are, essentially, the same OS...with Pro having some additional features that you'll likely never use.

that said, now that you have Pro, there's no reason NOT to use it. you need to go in there, back up any data you have, and then put that XP Pro disk in and run the fresh install option - this will wipe out ALL data you have on that partition, so the backup in advance is a must. if you really don't want to do that, boot back into the XP Pro disk - there's a "repair windows" option (not sure the exact name). that may fix your issue too, although a fresh install will generally give you better performance/stability after it's done.

it's really not that difficult - there's no reason you should have to pay a ridiculous fee to have someone else do that for you. just go slow and follow the directions closely. and, again, back up first.

[chinaski]

DD is 100% correct.

[sterlingice]

Are there some files you want in there? If so, then don't wipe to start with.

Also, you could try Windows Recovery/Repair or whatever it's called when you boot up with the WinXP disk:
Choose to repair your XP Home installation.
Then you can backup your old files to CD or whatever so you don't lose everything. Then start up WinXP Pro and format that hard drive once you've saved your info and start fresh.

SI

[stevew]

I dunno if anyone has had a similar situation, but my computer no longer is booting on power up. The CD rom light stays on, and it appears that the machine never accesses the hard drive at all. I unplugged a lot of stuff, all the ide cables, and i believe it is either a ram, powersupply, or motherboard, or CPU issue. This blows :( Has anyone every had a powersupply malfunction(I think this is the cheapest thing to replace)