Need to Erase Corrupted OS & Reformat but^\ done from a Flash Drive. But How?

I need to reformat my laptop from the flash drive. It has a corrupted OS on it and I want to put a different version on it. But the only good windows version I have is on my USB Flash drive. It was a digital download so I don't have a cd. I tried to reboot with the flash drive (Sardu I think is what I used) and it works on other laptops but not this one. Even when I changed the boot menu it wouldn't read it. The laptop has an invalidated Windows vista version that is total crap and I want to delete it and put a validated windows xp version on it. But for some reason it's not reading the flash drive as a boot drive. (even tho I know for a fact it works on my other netbook as being read as a boot) I just need to find a way to reformat the laptop and start all over with this good copy of windows. It lets me READ the flashdrive and access my files on it ...but it refuses to recognize it as a boot drive during startup. Even when I changed the boot order in the beginning. It just reverts right back to the corrupted unvalidated vista version that is already on it and that I want to delete. I just want to get rid of it already ...but it won't let me find a way in to delete it. But maybe I am doing something wrong or haven't thought of everything.

Any suggestions?

Sorry if I am rambling...it's been a very frustrating back and forth process.

Thanks for any help you may suggest.

Merry Christmas!

 

You cannot legally download Windows so I doubt you will get much help here.

 

are you SERIOUS????

It was a christmas present and I thought he got it from ebay legally or something!! Great.

I should have known.

Well that makes a lot of sense. Thanks anyway. I'm just gonna go ahead and buy the OS myself then. Where's the best place to get it legit? Cheapest? Do you know?

And there's no way to get it digitally? It will have to be shipped on cd then, right? So I'll just have to be patient and wait for it to come in the mail. LoL That's the whole reason he got it for me digitally and sent it as a xmas present... I didn't want to wait for it to come in the mail. Tee Hee I should have known it was too good to be true.

But I don't want to get messed over cuz I don't really know much about this stuff ... so if you could suggest the best place to go to get this done the right way... I would greatly appreciate it I think windows xp would work best on this laptop. It's an old laptop and I believe that was the original OS that came with it. The whole reason vista is on it now and is unvalidated is cuz I didn't know you couldn't use a cd that came with my desktop to put it on my laptop. I guess those are only good for the machine they came with and therefore can't be validated. But the laptop crashed and I didn't have a cd for it anymore so I thought I could just reformat it and put my desktop's OS cd on it and fix it that way. But WRONG! And you know the rest that happened next with the xmas gift. Now it's just a huge big mess and doesn't work right at all. So now I just want the damn machine to be legal again and back in working order.

Thanks so much for any suggestions

 

I'm probably the wrong side of the Atlantic to give you any useful advice about where to buy, but I'm very happy about you wanting to go legit and sure someone else here can help you. But even Amazon can't be wholly trusted - my first purchase of W7 Ult from them turned out to be less than wholly legit - though to be fair they did give me a full refund.

 

Thanks for the advice. See that's what I am worried about... spending very hard to be gotten money on something that isn't wholly legit. And if Amazon can't be trusted... then I have no clue where to go.

Yes, I am hoping somebody here will have an idea of a good place.

Thanks again for the info ... I greatly appreciate it

 

You can find Windows XP at this site.

http://www.nextag.com/microsoft-windows-xp-for-sale/shop-html

 

Puuuuuurfect!!! Thank you!!
This is EXACTLY what I was looking for :drool

You guys rock as usual!!
:dood