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How do you reinstall WIN XP?

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lil sleepy

Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2005
Location
San Diego
yo man my computer is messed up and i need reinstall everything and start off clean again. but if i do this is my songs on my comter goana erase? oh yea and one mone thing can anyone tell me the step by step process of reinstalling?
Thanks in advance!!
 
Restart the computer. When the computer bios boots, watch for the instructions to enter SETUP (pressing DEL, F2, etc.). Scroll through the menu until you find BOOT SETTINGS (or something similar). Make sure your CD/DVD-ROM drive is available as one of the boot devices under the priority list. Insert your Windows XP install disk into the appropriate drive, then exit the bios and save the changes you made (if any). If prompted to press any key to boot from CD, do it. Windows XP setup will show up on the screen. Select the option "To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER" by pressing ENTER. Next you'll choose the "To repair a Windows XP installation using the Recovery Console, press R" by pressing R. Accept the EULA agreement, then select the disc that contains Windows XP (probably C: in your case) XP will start the install, and then reboot. Make sure you have the Windows XP Key ready because you'll have to enter it again. All your files will remain where they once were. When the process is finished, immediately go to Windows Update and download and install any you need. Do a disk defrag and you should be good as new. Windows repair will not cure you of viruses, worms, malware, or things like that. If those are the reasons your computer is performing badly, then you need to take a different approach.
 
If your Windows installation is FUBAR, back up everything that you consider important - music, documents, pictures, browser bookmarks, etc. Burn them off to CD/DVD or put them on a USB drive.

Seven7Thirty30 has some good points. Make sure your computer can boot from CD so that you can boot the Windows installation disk. If your system can't boot and you need to get back in, the repair installation hopefully will help.

If Windows is just acting funny, and you want to start from scratch, scour the internet for "how to reinstall windows", or something to that effect. You'll get more tutorials than you can shake a stick at (or whatever.) Since this is your first time, print it out, or keep another computer right next to you as you reinstall.

The steps are pretty straight forward. It's more or less wipe the drive, set a C: drive (partitioning), and let it installation go. Once you're in the Windows environment, install the drivers that didn't get autodetected, visit Windows Update, and install your antivirus/firewall/antispyware apps. That's it.
 
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