Make a bootable floppy from a Win98 machine. Put Format, FDISK, and
MSCDEX on it. Might also want EDIT and scandisk.

Try to figure out what CDROM drivers you need for DOS (probably have to
find the vendor's Web site). Put these on the floppy and make a
config.sys/autoexec to load the driver and MSCDEX. Usually, in config
sys:

DEVICE=c:\somedriver /d:anything

Then in autoexec.bat
MSCDEX /d:anything

(the anything can be -- well -- anything as long as they match)

Boot from the floppy. Make sure you can hit the CDROM drive. If you
can't, try configuring again until you can before proceeding.

Use FDISK to delete the (probably NTFS) partition. Create a new DOS
partition. Format with the /S option.
Copy everything on the floppy over to the C drive and reboot on the C
drive.

Then run setup of the Windows CD.

Caveats:

1) If you have a bootable CD, you probably don't need the drivers and
you can just reboot and let the CD boot.

2) Don't ask Windows to make a boot floppy. It can't know what CDROM you
have so it loads dozens of drivers in a compressed file. Then at boot
time it makes a RAMDISK and unpacks the drivers there. This is fine
until you try to install windows which gets mortally confused about your
odd setup. Just go to a command prompt and type:

FORMAT A: /S

Then copy the files mentioned and do the DOS CD setup if required.

Good luck!

Al Williams
AWC
Free PIC Tutorial
http://www.al-williams.com/pictutor




> -----Original Message-----
> From: pic microcontroller discussion list
> [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU] On Behalf Of Martin Baker
> Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 11:58 AM
> To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> Subject: [OT] : Expunging windows XP
>
>
> We just bought a little cheap PC for the Lab, and it came
> with XP. I need to blow XP off the drive and install W2K, for
> which we bought a shrink wrapped copy. I cannot get the
> system to wipe XP. The one time I want to format the drive,
> it won't let me. Icannot run setup from the CD, and when
> Ireset the Bios to boot from the CD or floppy, it still boots into XP.
>
> Has anyone else successfully dealt with this ?
>
> TIA
>
> Martin
>
> --
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