Installing Windows XP - Page 2

2) If you are booting from the CD (option b) then you will be confronted with this blue screen. This is loading windows setup, that you will use to choose if/where to install windows, and whether or not to format/overwrite/repair what is already in your PC. Be warned, because this can take a few minutes to get through, especially on an older computer. Just sit back and wait for it to bring up to white text and give you the opportunity to interact.

If you are NOT booting from CD, then skip to step 6.


3) Throughout Windows Setup, the buttons you need to press are shown at the bottom. If the message comes up, simply press Enter to confirm you wish to continue. If you are using an evaluation version of windows, it may tell you and ask you to press Enter too. The licence agreement should then come up after a moment, which you should read thoroughly. Okay I know nobody actually bothers to read all of it every time (if ever), but in my advice you should be familiar with what it says, because it doesn't change much between versions - just read it once. Press F8 to agree to that (as it says at the bottom).

4) You are then confronted with the partition manager. Here you can choose on which drive/partition you wish to install Windows. If you have no formatted drives (like my screenshot) then simply choose to install it in the unpartitioned space. If you wish to make a new partition, press C. If you wish to delete an existing partition (to make room for a new one) press D. If you wish to write on an existing partition, select it and press enter. If Windows is on there already, you can then press L to delete or Escape to choose another folder to install windows in (eg /WIN). If you choose to do this (or have Windows installed on more than one partition) then you will be given the option to choose which copy to boot into. This can be configured later. If you wish to get rid of all data on that partition, press L to get rid of the existing windows installation and choose to format it:

5) You may see the format screen. If you do, you have a choice. If you want to completely empty everything from that partition or entire hard disk, you should format the drive/partition by choosing Format using NTFS (quick) not FAT32, but you can choose the slow version instead if you wish to have a more thorough format. If you want to keep your data but get rid of the copy of Windows that is on there, simply choose to not format (leave file system intact), which I've written on the screenshot since that option wasn't there for me.

If you format a parition or disk you WILL lose ALL information stored on it, and you will NOT be able to get it back. The FBI could, and some computer experts could, but that is hard and unreliable. Make sure you know what you're doing before you choose that. If you are unsure, choose not to format.

If you have chosen to format, it will spend a minute or so doing that. At this point the rest of this step is automatic.

For everyone, it will then copy all the windows installation files to the hard disk so it can install faster (CDs are slow). Then it will restart your computer. From when the progress bar comes up you can leave, because it can take ten minutes or so before you can do anything else. When it reboots, do NOT choose to boot from CD.