Cannot install XP

[Maxtor]

Hi,

I have a Tiny laptop and because I have problems with the preloaded Windows XP Home Edition I want to format the hard drive and start again from fresh. However, when I put my own XP Professional disk in when turning the computer on, it comes up saying "Boot CD-ROM Type: CD-ROM/Non-Emulation Booting" and doesn't let me load the disk. I have tried installing it once windows has loaded up but says something like "The version of windows on the hard drive is newer then the one on the disk" and won't let me install it. I don't no what to do, I have been trying all week. Thanks

[Eric]

You want to format your harddrive and re-install windows correct?

All you need to do is get a blank floppy drive, format it to make it bootable, and put wdclear on it. wdclear is a western digital formatting tool, but it will work for any brand harddrive.

once you boot to it it's really simple. it will ask you what drive you want to format, are you sure, are you REALLY sure, then all is wiped.

after this, you should be able to boot from your ORIGINAL WINDOWS XP disk. if you have problems booting from it after you format post back here.

i think the reason you cant boot from it NOW before formatting is because you have a DIFFERENT operating system installed, and you can only boot from a CD of the same operating system.

[Maxtor]

Thanks for that I will try it. I will have to get hold of a USB floppy drive, my laptop doesn't have one.

[syphus]

It doesn't matter what OS is installed; booting from a CD has nothing to do with it.

The Windows XP CD uses a non-emulated 4-sector boot image, which is why the message "Non-emulation" comes up, but this is normal and shouldn't prevent it from booting. What can prevent it from booting, is if the CD is a copy and someone used the default 1-sector read for the image when they burned the disc. Alternatively, it could be an issue with the BIOS, or the CD/optical drive could be damaged.

Usually you can upgrade Windows XP Home to Professional within Windows except when the Windows installation has OEM customisation, but it should allow you to do a clean install if you run the setup from the CD.

A following question is, why exactly do you want to upgrade to Professional? There are very few advantages, and it could be difficult locating all the drivers and utilities you need to get it working properly on your notebook.

[Maxtor]

Thanks,

I need to restart my OS because all the drivers for the hardware have gone missing and when ever I try to reinstall them from the disk, windows cannot find them eventhough they are clearly there on the disk. I have tried using my hardware on other computers and it works fine so it's obviously a problem with my Windows. I have tried using system restore but that doesn't solve the problem. The only thing I can think of is starting again.