Posted By: TuesdayNext
Reinstalling XP from scratch - 02/28/05 10:54 PM
This may be a little too involved for this forum but I'll at least make the request and take it from there. I am so disgusted with my six month old XP computer that I'm about ready to throw it out the window. It's a Dell computer and I could call tech support and spend hours on the phone with them but I have more confidence in the techs here. What I am hoping to do is install XP without SP2. I have the CD-ROM that came with all my other Dell disks, but I also have another (completely legitimate) copy of XP-Pro. I am not sure if this disk has SP1 or SP2. But if there is a possibility that it has only SP1 on it I would prefer to install that version of XP instead.
I don't know if the problems that I am having are due to XP itself or due to SP2 but it's as though I have no control over my computer. I wanted to change my running processes in Task Manager to the ones that inferno has listed on her site. I did that and Windows changed them right back to the way they were. Anytime I try to make changes to my computer, it just undoes what I've done. I want to take back control of my computer and have it run the way that I want to - not the way Microsoft does. Will eliminating SP2 make it easier for me to do that?
Two weeks ago my Norton Internet Security decided - out of the blue - to deny me access to change settings. In fact, Norton Internet Security decided to turn itself off when I booted up this morning and will not let me turn it back on - says only the supervisor can do this. This is the exact same problem I had before which resulted in my doing a system restore to attempt to correct the problem. It worked for a while and now I have no control over it.
So to make this rather tedious explanation finally come to the point, how does one wipe out the hard drive and start all over. I did this with my 98SE by using fdisk, repartitioning, and then reinstalling Windows. The problem that I encountered was that I could not get my computer to access the Windows CD-ROM. I had to go into the BIOS and change the boot-up order so that my CD-ROM drive booted first and the floppy drive second. Then it would access the disk and install Windows (I went back in later and changed the BIOS back again). I know there is some other way to get the computer to access the CD-ROM at bootup without going into the BIOS but I don't know how.
The other problem I had when I was reinstalling drivers on the 98 was that I didn't install all of them correctly or in the correct order. So when installing drivers what would be the order? I thought that the chipset was first but I'm probably wrong.
OR...could I just try reinstalling Windows using the other XP-Pro CD-ROM in hopes that SP2 isn't included in it (there's no documentation on the disk or the pamphlet that came with it indicating if SP1 or Sp2 is included).
Any suggestions - any help (even if it's just to say "Call Dell and let them figure it out," would be gratefully appreciated.
tuesday next
I don't know if the problems that I am having are due to XP itself or due to SP2 but it's as though I have no control over my computer. I wanted to change my running processes in Task Manager to the ones that inferno has listed on her site. I did that and Windows changed them right back to the way they were. Anytime I try to make changes to my computer, it just undoes what I've done. I want to take back control of my computer and have it run the way that I want to - not the way Microsoft does. Will eliminating SP2 make it easier for me to do that?
Two weeks ago my Norton Internet Security decided - out of the blue - to deny me access to change settings. In fact, Norton Internet Security decided to turn itself off when I booted up this morning and will not let me turn it back on - says only the supervisor can do this. This is the exact same problem I had before which resulted in my doing a system restore to attempt to correct the problem. It worked for a while and now I have no control over it.
So to make this rather tedious explanation finally come to the point, how does one wipe out the hard drive and start all over. I did this with my 98SE by using fdisk, repartitioning, and then reinstalling Windows. The problem that I encountered was that I could not get my computer to access the Windows CD-ROM. I had to go into the BIOS and change the boot-up order so that my CD-ROM drive booted first and the floppy drive second. Then it would access the disk and install Windows (I went back in later and changed the BIOS back again). I know there is some other way to get the computer to access the CD-ROM at bootup without going into the BIOS but I don't know how.
The other problem I had when I was reinstalling drivers on the 98 was that I didn't install all of them correctly or in the correct order. So when installing drivers what would be the order? I thought that the chipset was first but I'm probably wrong.
OR...could I just try reinstalling Windows using the other XP-Pro CD-ROM in hopes that SP2 isn't included in it (there's no documentation on the disk or the pamphlet that came with it indicating if SP1 or Sp2 is included).
Any suggestions - any help (even if it's just to say "Call Dell and let them figure it out," would be gratefully appreciated.
tuesday next