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I had xp pro from when I had my pc built... I ordered xp home but it was back-ordered so they threw in xp-pro and had me come back a couple days later to get my xp-home. I've been using the pro ever since... I saw no reason to change. But then I went to install the new "Service Pack 1" and it wouldn't let me download cuz I had an "invalid product id" -- I thought I'd be clever and I used an xp-pro crack program and got a valid id and it let me download sp1 just fine and it installed but after it rebooted it came up as "can't validate activation" and well, I accepted my defeat and I know how to install my (paid for) version of xp-home over top of the old xp-pro install, but I want to format my c-drive and then install my home edition fresh. For the life of me I can't figure out how to format... it's not like win98, anyway.. so how do you do it? AND how do I get the emtpy drive to function with the cd-rom drive if I'm not using a boot disc? Does the Xp-home disc do something fancy-schmancy to make it all work so that the pc will detect the cd and initiate setup??? Any advice would be "Greatly appreciated" --- I'm too tired now to even think straight about this stuff..... thank you :)
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hey-
okay put the home xp cd in your drive... and restart the computer.
It should boot of the cd, depending on the version of your bios. If it does not boot off the cd....go into your bios and change the setings to boot from cd before it trys to boot from harddrive.
Once you get booted off the cd, you should get a blue screen and it will be the beginning of the install. At least this is what I think it should do, but I have never installed XP home... so I am not 100% sure. Let it run its course of action, eventually you will get to the screen where you can pick your drive to install XP. This is where you will want to format the drive. It will do so and then you will continue with the installation.
Now what I have written might not be 100% acurate, but if the home install is like the professional XP, 2000 Pro, or NT 4.0 install ... then it should work.
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holy crap that was a fast reply... I thought I was just being silly to try to see if someone replied to my sad little question already... wow, cool... I'm really freaking tired but what you said made sense to me... I will try that right now. Thank you.
p.s. your profile picture, that's the guy from Cowboy Beebop... that's like my fav. japanimation... I had the first five chapters but then someone "borrowed" that DVD. I got the whole boxed set on order from HMV but that was like over a year ago... damn, I really want to see the rest of that! but yeah... thanx!!!!!Comment
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If you used FAT32, you can boot from a Win98 boot floppy to format the hard drive (if you set 1st boot device to "floppy" in the bios). Only 4 files need to be on the floppy: msdos.sys, io.sys, command.com, and format.com.Comment
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thanks bigjack, the partition is of the NTSF variety but, not knowing what I was doing I actually tried to boot from a win98 recovery disc in hopes to gain "cd-rom" support... I posted my little issue somewhere else on this web site and a I was told I have to go into my BIOS and set my machine to boot from the cd-rom rather than the hard drive manually. I knew that though... I've done that before. I just forgot in my sleepyness and frustrated state of mind (silly me!). I've held off until this moring to do the full reformat just so I could check out these posts one more time (good thing because I didn't know about the F8 key to get to the menu I need to after bootup in order to delete my current partitions --that might have caused me a problem). This is all good, though... had I known about this "activation" procedure I would have just installed my legit xp-home in the first place... the guys who built my machine originally had threw in xp-pro for my convenience because "home" ed. was back ordered. All and all this was a good pc learning experience for me. Thank you for your help --I got all the help I needed from this web site and very quickly too. Thanks everybody!!! :wave:Comment
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