hey, i had the trial for windows vista, it run out and i needed a product key, i wanted to go back to xp, when i put it in my laptop it loads and completes all the first part but when i restart it and it comes on the screen saying 49 mins and installing etc a error message comes up saying things havent installed and cant continue etc thn restarts and does the same thing again, is there a way i can delete xp and start again and i have pressed f8 but i cant fix it on there, thanx

have you got a legal copy of XP complete with COA?

have you formatted the drive?

when i get my laptop is had xp on it, but it came with the xp disk, and i cant get further than the restart where it installs again, can i reformat it evern though i cant get on the laptop all i can do is fress f2 or f8 as it loads, thanx

is it set to boot from CD?

does it ask if you want to repair an installation of XP or if you want to do a clean install?

i think what he meants is the 2nd part of installation i believe? the part where they ask you for your region details and cd key and such.

yeah you can reformat it again if you can change your BIOS settings to "boot from cd drive".