Windows XP Reinstall

Hi

I've got an Advent Windows XP computer here which I need to format and reinstall Windows. I've also got the recovery CD supplied with the machine for this.

When I insert CD and restart it goes to 'press R for Recovery options'. I then select Quick Format for full format and reinstall. The process then beings. On the left hand side of the screen theres each stage of the process and an icon for each. The second process down is Hard Disk Preparation and this is where its at. The dialog box in the middle of the screen says its formatting the NTFS partition please wait etc...

The problem though is that its been on this stage for over 2 hours now, and the 'time elapsed' notifier on the left hand side of the screen it still at 0:00

I havnt done this is a while but it doesnt seem right. I expected the time would start to elapse as soon as the format began, and not say when the 'copy files' process, or reinstall, beings.

The hard drive too is only 120GB so I suspect it shouldnt take that long to format.

Any ideas or any advice on what might be wrong here??

Cheers

Hi,

To format:

• Press F2 or delete, whatever makes your way to the bios, select as 1st boot device the CD-DVD-ROM. Then save and exit. The pc will restart.
  
• The pc will boot from cd and you will be prompt to a blue screen where it will begin loading Windows XP Setup. Don't press anything, let it load.
  
• When the loading is over you will be asked to choose for set up windows xp, repair windows xp and quit setup. You must press ENTER not REPAIR
  
• Press F8 on the agreement
  
• When you see C: partition press delete it and make a new one
  
• Follow the procedure as it goes from there.

Vladimir wrote:

Hi,

To format:

• Press F2 or delete, whatever makes your way to the bios, select as 1st boot device the CD-DVD-ROM. Then save and exit. The pc will restart.
  
• The pc will boot from cd and you will be prompt to a blue screen where it will begin loading Windows XP Setup. Don't press anything, let it load.
  
• When the loading is over you will be asked to choose for set up windows xp, repair windows xp and quit setup. You must press ENTER not REPAIR
  
• Press F8 on the agreement
  
• When you see C: partition press delete it and make a new one
  
• Follow the procedure as it goes from there.

Hi Vladimir

I've done all that. Then followed the procedures onscreen but once it gets to the format process the computer seems as if its doing the job but time elapsed stays at zero, and this part has taken almost 3 hours now on a 120GB hard drive. The computer is relatively old but I took the hard drive out before and trested it and it appears to be healthy.

Hi,

Have you checked the cd? It might be damaged. Try a cd from a friend.

Hi,

Did you fix the problem? Was the cd causing the problem?