i setup multiboot systems on my computer so i have many simaler problems...
first to fix the stupid boot problem
1. you need to get to the computer's BIOS...if you know how skip to no 2
when the computer is starting up like as SOON as it turns on there should be a blue dell screen or something. look fast because it dissapears quick: look for setup push F10 or delete or setup or bios. it might look simaler to these:
Setup: F10
Push Del to enter Setup
push the button it says a bunch of times until you get a menu
2. there is no mouse, so use the arrow keys to navigate....
all BIOS's are different so what i tell you may not be exact...an instruction manual would be good right about now! if you have one look for a section about booting a CD or changing boot priority...follow the instructions there and make sure the cd drive boots before the hard drive and skip to no 3
in this menu there should be an area called boot or advanced or somehting
it should have the boot priority...find it and push enter on the first booting device. then change it to CD-ROM or CD-0 and then goto the second boot device and change it to HDD or HDD-0 or somthing like that.
there should be some instructions at the top or bottom...make sure you save and exit.
3. the computer will restart...watch the screen it should say
press a key to boot from cd....
push spacebar and wait for all the junk to load at the bottom and when the install screen finally comes up read everything and push enter till you come to a screen that lists partitions
you should see your hard drive, and its C drive. select it with the arrow keys and push enter...
when it promps with the options...select
format partition with NTFS file system (Quick)
and hooray! the hard drive has been wiped clean, and you should be able to continue the install like normal
this might be a little incomplete or i might have forgot something, but i think i covered everything...
good luck!
I have Dell Dimension 8100 desktop( Pentium4, 512 Mb RDRAM, 60 GB HD, and 1 g Hertz processor) with Windows 2000 Professional.
I had tried to upgrade it to Windows XP Professional first but it slowed down the pc and IE. So then I tried to do the clean installation with Win XP pro TWICE ( ofcourse after backing up all my data) but I have the following problems:
1) Unable to delete the old partition; it gives me the message like this ? unable to delete the partition because it contains set up files which are necessary for windows installation?.
I was able to install the Windows XP Pro on the existing partition but it does contain some of the old files and folders.
2) When I start the pc I get the screen which shows that I have TWO Windows XP Pro OS on my pc, one of them highlighted, and it gives the option to select one of them with arrow keys, however the arrow keys don?t work and computer start with the already highlighted OS.
Also the computer does not boot from the Win XP Pro CD.
1) How can I do the CLEAN installation ( delete and reformat the HD)?
2) I also want to add extra 512 Mb memory to the two available slots. Do I have to add two 512 Mb to each slot?
I will be very grateful for your help
Thanks
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