Hello to all at PCHF,

Had a quick look round the site and already I've learnt a thing or two - I have a feeling I may be here a lot.

For my first post the question is not for me but for my son (who I am about ready to throttle!)

To cut a long story short, in an effort to upgrade his PC from win 2000 to XP, (without having a clue what he was doing, or waiting for me to find out how to do it) it appears that rather than upgrade it he has installed the full XP programme and now has both OSs on his PC.

When the PC is turned on you get an option of which OS you want to use. If you choose 2000, it appears fine with all the old settings still in place (though I daren't try and do anything for fear of jamming the whole system up). If you choose XP, that also seems fine - except for the graphics. It is trying to work on 4bits, with no other option in the settings section. I'm presuming this is because there is not enough hard drive (20GB) for both OSs.

So my question is, how do I delete/uninstall Win 2000? and will this solve the graphics problem in XP?

He has 256MB Ram, and a Pentium 4, running at 1.7Ghz. I know it's only minimum spec, but at only 9yrs old, he hasn't got any massive or complex programmes installed - it should do him.

Any help would be appreciated - I want to try and sort it before his Dad finds out!

Hi aimeelou, welcome to PCHF

When you insert the Windows XP setup disc, you should eventually reach a blue screen that gives you options on how to setup your partitions. It should look something like below....



At this point, you have three options. ENTER will install Windows onto your selected partition, C will allow you create a new partition, and D will delete a partition. For your purposes we just need a single partition allocated for Windows XP. What I suggest you do, is insert your XP setup disc and start the process again, in other words, perform a clean install.

When you reach the above screen, make sure to delete all existing partitions. You'll be prompted a couple of times after hitting D (I think you're usually asked to press the L and ENTER buttons, just go right ahead)

Eventually, you should be left with some unpartitioned space, with that selected, press ENTER to setup Windows XP and format the hard disk. On the next screen, you should be presented with a few formatting options (shown below), choose the option that says format the partition using the NTFS filesystem. Don't choose the one with (Quick) next to it.



Then it's just a case of being patient and waiting for the hard disk to format, and for Windows to install and setup.

Hopefully that was explained clear enough, let us know how you get on and if you need help with anything else, just ask.

Sounds like your son created a dual boot? Do as PGH sugested reformat the hard drive.Wipe it clean and fresh install of xp.A little bit more RAM/memory would speed up the system also.Do not create any more partitions.
How to partition and format a hard disk in Windows XP

Thank you both for your speedy replies.

Yes, I think creating a dual boot is exactly what he has done.

PGH, thanks for the instructions, the screenshots are a great help

Just a couple of questions before I go and tackle it.

Do I need to make the PC boot up from the CD Rom rather than the hard drive and if so how do I do this? Will it do it automatically just from inserting the CD?

And just to clarify - am I right in understanding that when deleting the other partitions I am deleting the two Os's already on there, therefore creating enough space for a clean install of XP?

You have to enter BIOS and set first boot to CD/DVD rom do this by pressing either Del/F1/F2 it should show what to press on rebooting?Once set to cd rom put in xp disk press F10 save and exit follow instructions on the screen.The link will help.

Just wipe it clean do not create another partition.

Okay, I followed the instructions to the letter;

And at first I was. But alas, all to soon I was.

PGH, your instructions worked like a dream.I even did a bit of reading up on partitioning, thanks to Jellybean's link.

What I didn't read up on, was hardware compatability.

I still have a graphics problem, I also have a sound problem. I looked in the Device Manager and found the dreaded yellow signs next to the following items: Ethernet Controller, Multimedia Audio Controller and Video controller (VGA compatible).I tried to update the drivers but discovered that I couldn't because the software could not be detected.

Also in the display settings, I looked on the monitor tab, and nothing was highlighted, so it looks like the monitor isn't being detected either.

I had a new screen for christmas, my old one being your bog standard 'plug n play' type. As it worked on my PC and I have XP, do you think that would solve the latter problem?

As for the other things. I'm at a loss.

Ok what make and model is the pc/laptop?lets see if we can get you the drives for it?You can download on another pc and put to disk.

What xp have you installed?home?pro?