Problem: My friend has a Compaq nc6220 WinXp Professional setup on his laptop. He wants me to uninstall XP professional and replace it with winXP home edition...can this be done? I have a utility to wipe everything clean (which he wants anyways) but he would really like xp home....so again...any info would be appeciated..thanks folks

Hey T,

He won't be able to uninstall it, and revert to his previous XP Home, because the NTFS file system between Home and Pro is different, especially in terms of security. No problems going from Home to Pro, but not back again.

The only way to use Home again would be to wipe the HDD as you suggested, but there's no need to use any utilities to do this. You can do it during the setup of XP Home.

Okay thats what I needed to hear thanks mad!

*I did however wipe his HDD clean...and I do have the WINXP home setup disk...so it can be installed now?

The best method to accomplish the installation of the XP Home is first to remove the C drive partition, then create a new C drive partition.
This link will show you how...Partitioning A Hard Drive During XP Installation

NOTE: Wiping a drive clean is not as good as removing the partition.

Thanks Gandalf!

Well like I said, everything is wiped clean completely...so it is okay to install xp home now right??? Sorry I just want to make sure lol

Absolutely. This can also be done very quickly during XP setup too T, when it comes to the section, you'll be offered to delete your current partition (press D), and then create a new one (press C). It's that simple.