uninstalling windows xp home ed.

Hello all, I am new so I hope to provide enough information for you. Computer Specs are as follows: Dell Dimension 4100, PIII @ 866, 128 RAM, 20 G hard drive, Win 2K Pro. Here is my problem:

I recently installed win xp home edition on this computer w/o reformatting the hard drive, why, cause I'm an idiot. Anyway, I now have 2 operating systems on my computer. The win xp cd that I used is from my other computer, therefore, I cannot activate it. I have 28 days left. When I try to reformatt the hard drive now, it tells me that I cannot because another system is in use, and it asks me weather I want to try a "dismount" of the other system. When I type in "yes", it tells me I cannot continue. I will not be able to activate windows as I already have this CD key on my other computer, so I am just trying to start again with a clean hard drive. Can anyone tell me how to reformat the hard drive in this situation? I hope I have been informative enough, and I thank you in advance for your help. Thanks.

hiflite2

 

Welcome to MajorGeeks
Please follow this link
http://www.majorgeeks.com/vb/showthread.php?t=25831

 

FIRST BEFORE DOING THIS BACK UP YOUR FILES SOMEWHERE OTHER THAN THE HARD DRIVE IF IT IS POSSIBLE. (THIS PROCEEDURE WILL ERASE THE WHOLE HARD DRIVE.) THEN SET THE COMPUTER TO BOOT FROM A FLOPPY DISK

Obtain a Windows 95 startup floppy disk. If you don’t have one borrow one from a friend. Boot the computer from the floppy disk. Then run the fdisk command and delete the dos and non dos partitions off of the hard drive. Restart the computer by pressing Ctrl Alt Del. When the computer has restarted from the floppy, use the fdisk command to set a primary partition. Eject the floppy disk. Open the CD Drive, put your windows XP CD in the drive, don’t close the CD drive. Press Ctrl Alt Del. The computer should close the CD drive shortly. It should be smooth sailing from this point.

E-mail me if you have any questions about this procedure.

 

Go to bootdisk.com to download a Win98 boot disk, as it will do the same as the Win95 disk mentioned in the previous post.

 

you guys realize this thread was from FEBRUARY !!!!
you're a little late..

 

Kodo,
I'm guilty of not reading the original post date, and will start doing so, from now on!