> This is a Windows XP Home system. Anyone know how to wipe such a > machine completely clean via a format and full reinstall?
> The last > one of these I ran into, I could reinstall XP, but it was over top of > the existing files (may have been due to this being a mfr > 'restore'-type disk). What I really wanted was a good old-fashioned > reformat. Or if I could fdisk the thing to fool the XP installer into > going fresh, that would be fine as well. > > Assuming there is such a thing as fdisk these days ... :-( You can boot the system to a set of XP boot disks and do exactly that regardless of your OS CD type. If you have an OEM recovery disk that does not boot give you an option, go to www.bootdisk.com and follow the instructions to create a set of 6 XP boot diskettes. The boot disks can be flakey if you don't use new or freshly formatted disks. If the boot from diskette fails, reboot to XP, recreate the set, and try again. Boot to them and go to the "Repair Console" which acts just like a DOS prompt. It will display the number of Windows installations (usually just one) and ask which one you want to log on to. Enter "1" and the administrator password if there is one. Once there you can run "Diskpart" which is similar to fdisk in that you can create and delete partitions. There is also "Format" command available. Type "Help" at the prompt to see all the available commands. You can do a chkdsk from there too. In my experience, the OEM recovery disks provided for Windows XP, Home and Pro, have either completely wiped the hard drive and set it back to the condition it left the factory in with no option to keep the existing data on the drive, or as in the Dell recovery disks, given the additional option to reinstall over the exsisting installation to keep the user's data, similar to the retail versions of XP. I have never found an OEM recovery disk that did not offer a complete wipe and reinstall as an option, and sometimes the only option. Good luck, Douglas Traylor MIS Department Harbison-Fischer Mfg Co. (817)297-2211 x210 To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
