EdelSteve
11-08-2006, 11:48 AM
Hello all, I'm a newbie here, sorry if I don't make things as clear as they could/should be!
My laptop crashed, making me sad :( -- it wouldn't boot up, just stayed a blank screen (but showed me an initial screen, confirming that it wasn't a monitor problem). I was advised to try and reinstall Windows XP. (I was using SP2). I didn't have my original disk (I am currently on academic exchange in Sweden), so I used a disk I have in my office here, but of course, silly me, didn't notice it was for XP Pro, and the serial number wasn't accepted, thus leaving me in the middle of an installation.
I then bought a copy of XP with a legitimate serial number. However, now whenever I try and reboot the computer to install the regular (not Pro) XP, it reverts to the old installation of XP Pro and there doesn't appear to be a cancel.
I have made sure that I fixed in the BIOS setup area that it boots from CD first, and put the new XP CD in the CD-ROM. This doesn't appear to have any impact on things as it continues to try to fulfill my XP Pro installation. I tried inserting the new CD's serial number in the XP installation and that didn't work either.
Any hints on how to get this to stop? :confused: I was told I could reformat the C drive to erase any installation files and then reboot from the CD, but I can't get to a command prompt to reformat the drive!
HELP!!!
Thanks, Steve
My laptop crashed, making me sad :( -- it wouldn't boot up, just stayed a blank screen (but showed me an initial screen, confirming that it wasn't a monitor problem). I was advised to try and reinstall Windows XP. (I was using SP2). I didn't have my original disk (I am currently on academic exchange in Sweden), so I used a disk I have in my office here, but of course, silly me, didn't notice it was for XP Pro, and the serial number wasn't accepted, thus leaving me in the middle of an installation.
I then bought a copy of XP with a legitimate serial number. However, now whenever I try and reboot the computer to install the regular (not Pro) XP, it reverts to the old installation of XP Pro and there doesn't appear to be a cancel.
I have made sure that I fixed in the BIOS setup area that it boots from CD first, and put the new XP CD in the CD-ROM. This doesn't appear to have any impact on things as it continues to try to fulfill my XP Pro installation. I tried inserting the new CD's serial number in the XP installation and that didn't work either.
Any hints on how to get this to stop? :confused: I was told I could reformat the C drive to erase any installation files and then reboot from the CD, but I can't get to a command prompt to reformat the drive!
HELP!!!
Thanks, Steve