I was given a PC, XP Professional, pre-Service Pack 1, but on a company licence. So I needed my own version with pukka licence key. Following some software installs, Avast and Svc pack 2, now if I load, blue XP desktop, no applications running. I don't have any original disks to correct the 1st version. I've purchased an XP Home (Ver 2002) disk and want to install this (better all round) , but this will only run from a 'new PC' scenario. How do I clean the PC down please, so I can install from the new CD? There aren't any files/applications to save. I've been lent a Knoppix CD, to get onto the Internet.

Thanks in anticipation

Simply insert the new XP disk, and, providing the bios is set to boot from cd, it will give you this option when you turn the computer on, then when XP setup loads, it will ask you to install windows or repair a current version, select fresh install, then it will ask you partition to use, select the main partition.

Then it will ask you if you want to format or leave the partition intact.

Select format partition with ntfs (quick)

And your away - this will do a fast format deleting everything on the drive and XP will install no problems.

Please be certain though that there is not data you need to save before following these steps!!!

Thanks DavidS.

When I put the disk and ran setup, the message basically read "there's a version of windows here already I don't upgrade from XP Professional". This is why I was wanting to reformat the disk and start again as I don't know how to remove the previous version. Any thoughts please?

You could try downloading DiscWizard from www.seagate.com.

You should be able to zero fill and reformat. Works for me on Win 98SE.

Also set the BIOS to boot from CD first.

Aminata K, when it tells u there is another verion of windows, don't worry about it, just tell it that is where u want to install Windows and then when it asks if u want to reformat, tell it yes, and it will do all that u need.

Yes just delete the existing Windows XP partition and setup a fresh install of XP on the "empty" partition. XP setup will format the partition and install XP on it automatically. Do a quick format in NTFS