beginners guide to wipe a computer?

Dutchboy

hey all!
im just back in college and want to wipe my laptop because ive so much rubbish on it but i havent a clue how to do it! i have xp pro , goin to install xp home. could anyone give me a couple of pointers if possible?
thanks in advance!

mewso

Boot from your XP CD and reformat the drive. Then install. This assumes you have backed up anything you need to keep... which forms a question of my own.

RE*AC*TOR

Why are you downgrading to xp home?

You need to set your laptop to boot from cd first. Usually done by pressing del or f2 when booting up to enter bios setup. Set boot device priority to your cd-rom first. Put in the XP cd, reboot. Press any key to boot from cd... Follow the instructions. Delete the existing partitions when the time comes, create new ntfs partition. The install after that is very simple. At the end when xp is installed you'll probably need drivers for your soundcard, graphics card and other items if applcable. Probably came with your laptop.

jozi

What i always do is download the latest drivers for all your devices and burn them onto a cd/dvd or store them on another harddisk.

Jozi

Dutchboy

thanks for ur help lads
just wondering whats the real difference between xp home and pro?
is one more stable thsn the other or is it performance?

RE*AC*TOR

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.asp

Deadwing

Pro has alot more networking features than home.
And theres a much easier way to format your drive. Just stick a win 98 book disk in your disk drive (if you have one), boot to an A:\ prompt, and type 'format c:'. Job done!

RE*AC*TOR

fat32?