Hi, and
Thank you for letting me join your forum.
I seem to have got myself into a right fine old mess.
I do hope this group can give a poor novice like me some instructions. I think I need to format my C: drive. I have windows XP Home OS. From OEM. This is NTFS partitioned.
I tried foolishly to reinstall XP over the top of the same copy. What is happening is it is installing to 13 minutes left and then it gets stuck because there is a file it cannot locate. I have a sneaky suspicion this is an orphan file of something I uninstalled a while back.
Anyway I can’t get any further.
I think i need to clean install and wipe the c drive clean to begin again from the beginning.

I can’t uninstall as XP was not an upgrade from another OS

I have tried to put format commands into to R console to no avail

I can’t use the windows set-up floppy disks (six of them I heard!!!) because I have no floppy drive to download them too. ( im using my laptop at the mo)

The only data I backed up before formatting was my personal files as I was still thinking in windows 98 mode. I was going to reinstall all my drivers and such.

I guess I’m stuck and any help would be very much appreciated. In simple 123 steps please because as you can see I’m not that smart otherwise I wouldn’t of got myself into this mess in the first place.

Thanks very much
beachlover

Hi beachlover,

I'm new to this forum too, this is actually my first post! Anyway, lets try and help you out...

Reinstall XP (fresh install):

(Before you go about wiping your harddisk, make sure you have all the relevent driver CDs for your PC's hardware (e.g. specific's like graphics cards, monitor etc as XP may not provide the required driver))

Since you have the XP CD, you should be able to reinstall by booting from the CD:

(1) Put the XP CD in CD/DVD drive and reboot your PC. If the option appears to "Boot from the CD" by pressing any key, then do so & continue to step 2. Else you may need to change the boot order which involves altering the bios settings. If this is the case then post back and I'll try and help you with this. Hopefully this is not the case!

(2) Now if all is going well the CD should start to load and you should see a blue background. Afterward you will be presented with some options - repair, install and exit. Select the "install" option and agree to the terms/conditions (F8 key I think).

(3) You should then see a screen showing the current Windows XP installation that has been found. Select the option to install a fresh copy of XP (ESC key I think, but check on-screen)

(4) Next you should see the current harddisk and partitions. For a clean install, delete the partition with your current windows installation (probably the C: drive partition, but check). After deleting you should return to the partition screen with it now showing "unpartitioned space". Select the unpartitioned space and create a new partition here (press C I think).

(5) Select and install to the newly created partition and format it with the NTFS file format. You'll probably be asked to choose either standard or quick format. Quick format is ok if you're sure there are no bad-sectors on your harddisk, there probably isn't so stick with this unless you want to be extra sure.

(6) The setup will then format the partition and procede to install a fresh copy of Windows XP.

Note: If the machine restarts at any point then make sure you dont press a key to boot from the CD again when the option appears, just leave it to continue.

Have your OEM product number ready and click through the self-explanatory dialog boxes that appear. Activate windows at the end of the installation and install all relevant drivers/software and you're done!

Hope this helps!

Criz.

Great advice Criz - just the kind we need - hope to see you around here more in the future

hi Chris
i have done all that and it still wont boot

trouble seems to be in the partition.


I have 1 partion NFSC

everttime i put inthe set up disk im stumped

itwont go any further than XP start up disk
which is my problem

i need a clean cdrive tobegin again

XP will not let me format the unpartitioned c drive

how do i partittionn it??

When you boot off the XP startup disk (by which, I believe that you are talking about the XP CD-ROM), does it actually allow you to run the Setup program and does it then get as far as asking you which partition you want to install onto?

If there is no partition at all and it just gives you an option to install on "Unpartitioned space", then there should be an option to create a partition in that space.

If this isn't of any help, then I'm afraid I'm stuck - XP isn't my thing. Hopefully, Criz will come back on soon !

... but if you do have a C: drive partition (different parts of your post contradict each other), then there should also be an option at this point to delete that partition so that you end up with "unpartitioned space" and can then create the partition again. Of course, if you have a C: drive partition already, then you should just be able to install on that and get an option to format it anyway

Welcome Criz and Beachlover to D-A-L

can you clarify these two statements?

I tried foolishly to reinstall XP over the top of the same copy. What is happening is it is installing to 13 minutes left and then it gets stuck because there is a file it cannot locate. I have a sneaky suspicion this is an orphan file of something I uninstalled a while back.

everttime i put inthe set up disk im stumped. itwont go any further than XP start up disk which is my problem.

in the first quote what file could it not locate? what did you uninstall awhile back? why were you reinstalling?

in the second; are you saying you cannot recreate the first attempt?

hi everyone,sorry for the late reply.....i worked 12 hours yesterday trying to sort out the problem.

i will try to clarify some pionts but bare with me because im a bit of a novice. Also im using my laptop and the darn spacebar keeps getting stuck so please forgive any typos.

firstly, the c drive has 1 partition NTFS. when i put in the XP home startup disk it does not give me an option to install another partition. nothing comes up at all about partitions.Only a message about installing SCSI or RAIDER...i dont know what these are but i dont think i need them.

secondly, when i boot from CD i get the message that says windows xp setup is not complete. it then gives me three options
1) continue upgrade
2) cancel upgrade
3)exit setup without comleteing
It doent which one i choose set gets within 13 minutes to completion and i get a message that says " unregmp2.exe" "GETIUMS could not be located in the dynamic link library"
it will go no further....the message wont go away when i click ok or X close.

thats where im stumped, stuck.... i can't get any further....ive tryed all day yesterday ..not just once or twice....lots of times

i understand what you are saying about creating another partition but it does not give me that option. if it did i could ask for help in creating one and then i could format the partition i have

i hope this is a little clearer.

beachlover
PS...i wanted to clear the HD to give the putor to my friend.... i guess i should have left well alone.

A quick Google search has revealed that a lot of people have had the UNREGMP2.EXE problem during the Windows XP install. Although it seems unlikely, a lot of people have got past the problem by repeatedly clicking OK for 3 or 4 minutes !

Go and get yourself a cup of tea and then prepare to get a bit "trigger happy" for a few minutes. It seems that the error message just gives up in the end and lets you past