Hello, I have a Dell P4 8200, and iam wanting too reformat my hard drive, is there someone that can direct me to a website that show me how to do this as i have never done this before and i dont want to mess it up? I dont have anything that needs to be saved, just want to wipe it clean and do a new install of xp home, also all i have from dell is the disk that came with the PC? Iam hoping that windows xp home is on one of them. Again iam no tech, and need as much help as i can get,thats why i came here!!!!!
Go through Microsoft's Tutorial.. Windows XP: Installation Jst some tips before doing reinstallation.. I dnt know how much space u've got on ur HDD but make a separate partition for windows... 15GB is enough for that purpose. By doing that, if something happens to your windows then u wont loose ur data, u jst have to format the windows partition and reninstall windows again. Other drives will remain as it is. Good luck and if u face any problem then let us know...
Dell likely has a restore disk, which will do a 'clean' install to where you were when you first got the system. As far as an actual XP Home CD, I don't think Dell ships that, which I believe has something to do with a Microsoft vendor liscense agreement. If you do have an XP disc, you'll be able to paritition, if you want, and format your hard drive early on during the setup.
Also, if your going to make seperate partitions, use Paragon Partition Manager, there is more chance of something going wrong with Partitioning when usding Partition Magic, it messed my drives up once.
