Getting rid of xp???

[old.[SMEG]Holly]

Anybody here know how to get rid of bloody xp Tried installing my support disk which as win me on no good it won't format C: because of NTSC and me uses FAT 32. BAH So I thought ?I'll install Win 2K still no good older version will not down grade ?? Please can some body help .... Ta

 

[Grimes]

partition magic 7

 

[old.Malibu Stacey]

Get a floppy disk, go to one of your mates houses who has Win 95/98/ME installed & use it to create a statup disk (Control Panels -> Add/Remove Programs -> 3rd tab at top).

Using this start-up disk you can boot to a DOS shell and it should have FDISK (for partitioning drives) and FORMAT on the disk as standard.
Make sure in your BIOS setup up the drive order is A:, C:, [whatever] as it may be set to C:, A:, [whatever] which will make it alway boot C: which is usually what you want but in this case is not what you want.

BTW Win ME is cack. I installed it here and would have re-formatted ages ago if only I had Win 2K here to install. Am seriously considering installing Win 98SE in the meantime until I get Win2K.
(anyone needing reasons for my statement on Win ME then hows this. It ships with a Memory Hole which even after all this time has not been patched.)

 

[S-Gray]

I thought XP had some sort of lock in it, where you had to be good, because it was advanced removing - it took my mate 3 hours to get XP off, coz when he formatted the comp it ran somethin and it booted itself back up?

 

[Stazbumpa]

Originally posted by Malibu Stacey
It ships with a Memory Hole which even after all this time has not been patched.

*ears prick up*


What is this of which you speak?

Please explain.

 

[Tom]

Fdisk it. Nothing will survive that.

 

[Ch3tan]

If your really stuck get someone with partition magic to make you a emergency disk thingy. Will let you use the magic of partitions!

 

[old.Smeg]

Holly - why do you want to get rid of XP? It may be something that others have already fixed etc.
XP seems ok for me....but thats no endorsement

 

[old.Mr Crapini]

ok heres my suggestion, I have used fdisks reformat b4 however I don't think that it 100% cleanses your drive. This is my solution, I use a program called disk wizzard I bypass all the stuff it usually does and go straight for an option it has to zero fiil the drive, it takes a couple of hours to do 10Gb but I have been assured by my hard disk manufacturer that it will completely clear my drive, then I partition and reformat with fdisk and re-install windows as usual.
So if I'm right that fdisks reformat doesn't completely do the business try a zero fill.

 

[Tom]

Thats good advice but not necessary. Run fdisk, delete all the partition information on that drive, create a primary partition, using all the space, set that partition active, then reboot, format it (using a dos or windows setup disk), and reinstall windows.

 

[old.[SMEG]Holly]

Originally posted by tomjeffs
Thats good advice but not necessary. Run fdisk, delete all the partition information on that drive, create a primary partition, using all the space, set that partition active, then reboot, format it (using a dos or windows setup disk), and reinstall windows.

WTF does all that meen uck it I'll stick with xp just reinstall it mi boomslang don't work right and mi ping seems higher but at least its easier than all that..

 

[old.Kez]

Originally posted by [SMEG]Holly
won't format C: because of NTSC

Heh.

 

[old.Malibu Stacey]

Kez I guess its a typo & he really meant NTFS.

tomjeffs is completely spot on. Nothing surives the procedure he detailed and its the only way you should think about reformatting your OS HD. Any of these other progs that are mentioned are really just gloss.
Its very simple to understand & carry out if you read it properly.
all you need to do is run FDISK twice or 3 times (rebooting after each) then run format, then start windows install. Depending on how fast your boot disks gets to a command prompt its less than 5 mins actual kepressing.

 

[Tom]

OK Holly heres what u do

Create a windows startup disc (get one off a win98 friend if you can) - do this in the settings>control panel>add/remove proggies>windows startup disc

make sure that fdisk.exe and format.com are on this disc, and sys.com would be handy (typing sys a: c: copies all the system files from the floppy to the newly formatted hd)

make sure you have all ur important stuff backed up (including device drivers)

make sure you have a windows installation cd

Reset ur machine, check in the bios that it will boot off floppy, and let the floppy boot up

Hit F8 a few times when the disc is accessed, then bypass all the shite that it wants to do

type fdisk

select 'delete all partition information' option 4 i think

follow the instructions

reboot

do the F8 thing again, and run fdisk again

select 'create primary dos partition' option 1 i think. use all available space, and make the partition active (it should do that by default)

exit fdisk

reboot

do the f8 thing yet again, and type format c:

make a cup of tea, read the paper

once the disk is formatted, reboot and let the floppy go all the way

it should autodetect your cd rom, so put the windows cd in the drive, type d: (or whatever your cdrom letter is), and type setup

follow the instructions, and windows should install itself

reinstall all your device drivers that u carefully backed up (u did do that didn't u)

reinstall halflife and counterstrike completely, from scratch



If that doesn't work and get rid of XP, I'll bare my arse in Burton's shop window.

 

[old.Kez]

Originally posted by Malibu Stacey
Kez I guess its a typo & he really meant NTFS.

As I'm patently aware, thanks.

 

[old.[SMEG]Holly]

Thanks guys for all the help I'll give it a go I maybe gone sometime

 

[old.Mr Crapini]

btw incase you don't know, Fdisk is run from one of those black DOS screens that will usually show an A:\ at the left hand side all you do is type Fdisk (can't remember if u need to put .exe at the end) then type y to accept LBA support (depending on your hard disk size) ask if you have any further probs.

 

[old.Mr Crapini]

Originally posted by stazbumpa



*ears prick up*


What is this of which you speak?

Please explain.

I found this on the subject:

Windows Millenium Edition (ME) contains a memory leak that has apparently not been fixed according to Matt Vlasaty, a Chicago-based electrical engineer. He discovered the bug after opening large files of 200-Mbytes or so --such as Outlook email attachments or Usenet downloads. It turns out that Windows ME does not release the memory space the files are closed. Memory leaks will eventually deplete the system of its working memory space and cause noticeable slowdowns or lock-ups.
This bug will not necessarily affect all users, mainly those who work with large files (200Mb or higher in the tests). At this point, the only way to clear the memory space is to reboot the system.

Microsoft has acknowledged the bug and reports that it is working on a patch.

 

[old.Kez]

All the 9x kernels (95, 98, me?) suffer from memory thieving, back in the day, there were nice little programs that forcefully took back memory, though not very efficiently.
Frankly, anyone using 9x these days deserves to have to reboot often.

 

[Tom]

I'd rather put up with a couple of crashes a month than go and spend a few hundred quid on some big-fancy-pants-flashing-lights-microsoft-behemoth.

I might pirate games (NOT HL NOT HL NOT HL) occasionally, but I always buy my operating system.

 

[]SK[]

Your taking XP off to put ME on?

Not an XP fan myself but its better than ME. TBH anything is better than ME.

 

[old.Kez]

Its not piracy if I don't admit to it!!1111

 

[old.{RE@PeR}Denny]

TRy This....

There is a program called System Commander 7 that lets u run different o/s `s. But it also can change the FAT back to fat32!! The web site is www.v-com.com. If this don`t work, nowt will. This is also handy for all those XP - win98 confict issues as you can run both o/s`s on one harddrive !!!!