W2K ReFormat (W2K)

[etoilebrilliant]

Here are the facts. (i) have lost confidence in W2K and want to upgrade to WXP Pro (ii) upgrade costs more than full version so have purchased latter (iii) Windows won't let me place 2 OS on same partition so wish to uninstall W2K. (iv) Product key has blocked me out!!!!.

How do I do a backdoor reformat of harddisk without using installation disk.

Many thanks

[BertImmenschuh]

(i) Sorry to hear that, Win2000 is usually pretty good.
(ii) Usually the Upgrade is cheaper than the Full version unless using the OEM version [not much support on OEM from Microsoft].
(iii) True, the 2 OSes have to be on separate partitions.
(iv) Boot to a Win98SE floppy and use fdisk to delete the partition/s then boot to the WinXP disk and let it prepare the disk and format then install. Be sure the Product Key is the one that came with the WinXP disk. If trying to use a CD/Key from one of the 'brands' it may not work on a 'custom' computer ['brands' allowed to key it to their hardware].

Be sure to back up anything you want to keep, you created and that exists nowhere else.


<font color=blue>Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.</font color=blue> <font color=green>Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.</font color=green>

[etoilebrilliant]

Many thanks.

I agree about W2K but something I am using has resulted in 2 rebuilds in less than 6 months. Time to try something else.

Apologies for delay in replying