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AR15.COM
9/27/2008 8:11:19 PM EDT
A friend just gave me his older Toshiba laptop; 1 gig RAM and 40 gig HD. The HD is about half full, which seems a bit excessive for just an OS.
He thought it was infected with some sort of virus (personally, I doubt it) and his "cure" was to install Vista over the original XP.

I'd like to get it back to XP as that's what I'm running on my desktop machine.
I've copied all his stuff to my external HD (in case he wants it later).

I have a brand new XP Home Edition disc if I have to use it, but is there any way to just uninstall the Vista upgrade?
If I have to use the new XP disc, what do I have to do, format C:\ then install?
Thank you,
Rob
9/27/2008 8:24:00 PM EDT
[#1]
-put the disk in the drive
-reboot PC
-F12 during reboot for setup menu
-Select boot from CD drive
-pretty straight foreward from there
9/28/2008 6:00:12 AM EDT
[#2]
And this will clear all the old junk out?
I didn't think XP could/would overwrite Vista.
(I'm just nervous; never did a reinstall before)
Thank you
9/28/2008 6:10:02 AM EDT
[#3]

Quoted:
And this will clear all the old junk out?
I didn't think XP could/would overwrite Vista.
(I'm just nervous; never did a reinstall before)
Thank you


you will be formatting the harddrive and then reinstalling XP. the above poster had the general process correct.

edit: just to give you some more info, when you boot from the winxp CD its going to ask if you want to go to the repair console or install, do the install, it will probably detect your current windows install and ask if you want to repair, decline, then it will bring you to the partition screen and let you modifify the parittion and then format the partition. then it will start the install and when thats done reboot itself. dont let it start from the CD when it reboot, let it start from the hdd and it will then complete setup.
9/28/2008 6:15:53 AM EDT
[#4]
You could always re-partition the hard drive with a bootable floppy/cd with FDISK on it.  
9/28/2008 6:47:17 AM EDT
[#5]
i wouldn't suggest keeping vista on an older laptop with 1gb of ram.  if you have the home cd and product key.   i would go that route.  

  boot off the cd.  it will let you delete the original partitions which hold the vista install then it will format it and install xp home back on.  
9/28/2008 7:28:49 AM EDT
[#6]
Thanks folks; I'm more at ease now, and I'll be doing this within the hour.
9/28/2008 8:30:49 AM EDT
[#7]
PM me if you need a walk thru.
I can call you I get free long distance and walk you thru it.

9/28/2008 1:57:59 PM EDT
[#8]
Gentlemen, the operation was a success!
Thanks for your help and support.
Rob