Win XP/HE Troubles with new install!!?

[beauness]

Hey gang? I have a neighbor's box here that she bought about a year ago, from somebody. A message came up one day during an update that her copy of Windows was a pirated copy( XP PRO ). I explained how all that was going to affect her, she decided to get a new copy of XP HOME, and I told her, I would install it for her. No biggy, I thought! Now I have a copy of the new and the old. It wouldn't let me delete the first copy of xp.
Its A Maxtor Hd 30g. Tried "Maxblast 4", but it won't let me fix a drive with windows on it?
What the heck am I missing? Beauness:confused:

[mjc]

Are wanting to wipe everything and start over?

That would be the best way of going about it...

If so, then using DBAN (http://dban.sourceforge.net/) is probably the way to go...

[beauness]

Ok, that does sound like a very good option. Thanks for the reply!
This DBAN, is this a link you have sent me, and is it something this old geezer will be able to figure out?

[mjc]

The link is to the main page...just follow the directions, it builds a bootdisk that will wipe the drive.

[beauness]

Well, all went well with the download. Had to go to cd/dvd download, as I don't have floppies. When booting up with disk in, it just goes right back to OS. Went to boot seq. set the cd/dvd as first, but oddly no drives are shown, just floppy and maxtor. Is there a jumper I have to move? All the drives are reading and playing in windows, just won't boot. The XP disc will though???

Now I am really confused:confused: :mad: :(

beau

[mjc]

DVD you burn the disk by using the "Burn Image" option in your burning software?

[beauness]

I burnt this on my wife's mach. CD, no dvd. The machine I am working on has a dvd burner, but it has never been used, other than to read discs to see if it worked. I installed when she bought the OS a s the agreement with MS.
I'm not sure, but should the boot sequence not show a cd or dvd, by name, I don't know. The only thing on the cd is the DBAN, when put in at boot up, the machine, looks for the way it is set up in the CMOS, but skips cd/dvd. They light up, but so far only XP will boot from them, tried them both.

[mjc]

Yeah in the BIOS there should be a setting to set the optical drives to boot first and the drives should show up there...check to make sure the cable hasn't become dislodged.

[beauness]

I'll check!, but they wouldn't work at all if the ide cable has come dislodged, would they?