Serious XP help needed

Hi.

Recently i decided to reformat my computer since it had been sluggish. I backed up my drive and rebooted, and proceeded to allow xp to reformat my hard drive, however the install only added a copy of xp over my old copy, and didn't reformat my drive like it had in the past. I tried to do a manual reformat (right click on drive - format) but that didn't work. So i decided to try and log in as an administator, and gain full access to the files, but the keyboard wouldn't work. So i tried the last option i had - to cause a system crash, then re-install windows as a fresh install. I managed to crash the computer, but it worked too well that now i can't get past the first screen, nor will it pick up the xp disk.

Since i cannot seem to install xp back onto this drive and reformat it, is it possible to do the following?

1. Change my hard drive for a spare, blank 80gb drive, and put my hard drive into the external drive
2. Install XP onto the blank drive.
3. Copy the XP files onto the external drive.
4. Reinsert my drive and remove the 80gb drive, and run as usual.

I have a 6 month old, 3.0Ghz processor style system, so it isn't because my pc is old. Would the plan outlined above work, or is there a simpler method?

Thankyou in advance

Stewieandco

 

I believe that your problem comes from trying to install Windows while IN windows.

What you really want to do is boot from the CD, and install Windows that way. You will not be able to format the drive windows is on while you are USING windows.

The plan you've outlined would work, but is a lot of extra effort, imo.

You'll need to enter BIOS and set the system to boot from the CD drive before the hard drive, but from there, it should be simple.

 

will give this a go and let you know how it turns out. Thanks heaps

 

After nearly 3 days of trying we finally got the XP disk to reformat the HD before installing a fresh copy of XP.
We removed the HD and put it in the external drive but the other computer would not pick it up as new hardware. AARRGGHH!! Presumably this was because it had a copy of XP on the drive itself.
So back to the computer it went. Did a few tweaks of the BIOS and finally the computer picked up and booted from the XP disk. Drive was formatted and partitioned and as they say the rest is history. Machine is now fully functioning.
Thanks for the help received.