Reinstalling Windows on your PC is a great way to speed up your computer. It’s also an effective way to remove any viruses that may have infected the core of your operating system. In order to reinstall Windows make sure that you have the recovery discs provided to you when you first purchased your computer or a copy of the Windows installation CD.

Step by Step Instructions

IMPORTANT - Before starting this process, make sure to back up all the files on your computer. You can store them on an external hard drive or even using an online storage service like Drop Box, Box.net, or Mozy (and many more).  All your files will be deleted from your hard drive when you complete this process.

1. Those of you who have a Windows XP CD, begin by placing the disc in the CD drive.
2. Restart your computer.
3. At the beginning of the system reboot the screen should display something like “Boot from CD“. Press Enter.
4. Once the CD finishes loading completely it will ask whether you want to recover a past installation of windows, you do not want this.
5. A list of partitions should display on your screen. Choose the largest one and press “D”. Please note that this will delete everything from your hard drive.
6. Now press “F” to format the empty hard drive. If pressing the letter “F” does not work, then try hitting “L”.
7. Select “NTFS file system and delete old files” and hit enter.
8. It may take somewhere between a half an hour and two hours for the hard drive to format.
9. Once it finishes formatting, follow the instruction displayed on the screen for installing windows.
10. If everything has worked out right windows should restart with a fresh hard drive.

If you’ve got any questions, please feel free to leave us a comment below. We’ll shoot back a reply as soon as possible.

This is the procedure that you will go through in the installation process.  Please follow the bold instructions.

1. Press any button to boot from CD…

Setup is loading Files…
Setup is starting Windows…
Welcome to setup

1. To setup windows XP now, press ENTER
2. To repair a windows installation using Recovery Console, press R
3. To quit Setup without installing Windows XP, press F3

1. Press F8 to agree with the end-user license agreement

1. To repair the selected windows xp installation, press R
2. To continue installing a fresh copy of Windows XP without repairing, press ESC

Use the up and down arrow keys to select the “C” partition

1. To setup Windows XP on the selected item, press ENTER
2. To create a partition in the unpartitioned space, press C
3. To delete the selected partition, press D

1. To continue setup using this partition, press C
2. To select a differant partition, press ESC

1. Format the partition using the NTFS file system (quick)
2. Format the partition using the NTFS file system
3. Leave the current file system intact (no changes)

1. To format the drive, press F
2. To select a differant partition for windows XP, press ESC

Please wait while setup formats the partition…
Please wait while setup examines your disks…
Please wait while setup copies files to the windows installation folders.  This might take several minutes to complete.
Setup is copying files…
Windows is restarting your computer…

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