Installing win xp on a new harddrive

[l4t13]

Hey guys,

I was doing some repair on my aunt's pc, the harddrive was messed up and wouldnt boot. So I replaced it with a new 120 gb drive. How to I install the new OS on it?

thanks.

 

[balamw]

In general, stick in the XP CD, reboot to boot from the CD (you may need to change some BIOS settings to make it boot from CD), and follow directions.

Many PCs however don't ship w/install media so you may only have a "recovery" disk or the installation files may be on the dead drive. If you can't find install media, you may have to spend an extra $90 on a new copy of XP Home OEM.

More info on what it is you have would be useful.

B

 

[l4t13]

i have an install disk and code for windows ME

id like to put that on there for now

 

[balamw]

i have an install disk and code for windows ME

id like to put that on there for now

The ME disc should be bootable too, but if the PC is older the BIOS might not even be able to boot from CD. In which case you'll need a boot floppy (e.g. from http://bootdisks.org)

B

 

[l4t13]

how do i change the bios to boot from cd?

 

[balamw]

how do i change the bios to boot from cd?

Depends on the machine. Typically hit F2 or ESC or DEL just after the POST beep and poke around in the menu for boot devices. As I said before though many older PCs lack the ability to boot from CD, which means you need to boot from floppy w/ CD support and run the installer that way.

B