sytem restore help needed

G

graeme01

New Member
hi

basically My dad bought a compaq presario 3200 + couple years ago and it came with xp installed. we ran it like this for a while untill i managed to get an unoficial copy of windows with product key generator of someone for pennies. The way i was told to install it was to run it along side widows xp so on start up you have options to boot up with windows 7 or "an earlier version of windows". You just press enter to run windows 7 on startup and it was like a new computer. I have just come back from universtiy and the computer is a mess. riddled with spyware and it needs restoring to factory settings. I want to take it back to xp so its not running two operating systems. I have backed up the entire harddrive and i then proceeded to restart and select the option "earlier version of windows" thinking it would log me back onto the old xp os and i could perform a system restore and it would delete everything icluding the windows 7 and i could just start from scratch.

However when i do this it takes me to the same screen as the option windows recovery console and gives me three options:

1: D:\I386
2: D:\MiniNT
3: D:\Windows

"Which windows installation would you like to install?"

when i press 1 and 2 nothing happens it just retypes the two options. When i press three it asks me to put in an administration password. Now my dad uses the same password always and i have put it in and it has said its wrong.

I dont know where to go from here

Any advice would be much appreciated.

many thanks
 
Hi,

System restore won't take out the Windows 7 installation and you'd be lucky if it went back that far to take the Windows XP back to when you first bought it.

The options from the earlier versions of windows is probably giving you a selection of a recovery partition, the XP Part., and the 7 part.. Try the 3rd option again but when it asks for the administrator password leave it blank, it'll be referring to the built-in administrator account which is loaded with XP rather than your dads admin. account.

However, to reload it back to factory defaults all the top won't get you there. Did you have any installation media, i.e. Restore Disks? or do you have a recovery partition? Do you have an option to press a 'F' button on start up to start recovery mode? i.e. 'F11' or 'F6'?

Luke
 
boulder38 said:
Hi,

System restore won't take out the Windows 7 installation and you'd be lucky if it went back that far to take the Windows XP back to when you first bought it.

The options from the earlier versions of windows is probably giving you a selection of a recovery partition, the XP Part., and the 7 part.. Try the 3rd option again but when it asks for the administrator password leave it blank, it'll be referring to the built-in administrator account which is loaded with XP rather than your dads admin. account.

However, to reload it back to factory defaults all the top won't get you there. Did you have any installation media, i.e. Restore Disks? or do you have a recovery partition? Do you have an option to press a 'F' button on start up to start recovery mode? i.e. 'F11' or 'F6'?

Luke
Click to expand...

no i dont have the restore disks and i have the option to press f10 or f11 i think to go to system restore but it takes me to the above page again

there is a partition on the harddrive called backup but when i go into it it asks for a password and that and i get it wrong and then says folder is empty.
 
You may need to get hold of an OEM XP Disk to use to re-install the XP using your license key on the computer.

Have you tried the blank password when it asks for the administrator password?
 
Either somebody you know who has one or you can download the OEM version which you can use your license key with to activate and be genuine and receive updates.
 
ok i take it just reformat the hardrive and install the new os on first bootup then?

where would i find my product code for the xp?
 
It would be that yes :)

The product key will be on the computer or laptop if you have one, if not you'd need to buy one to be genuine.
 
As I can see,your laptop is a total mess and no system restore will help you here lol.Besides system restore does NOT delete viruses and other operating systems.System restore sucks,I never use it anyway...

The best thing you can do is to completely format the entire hard disk drive and then install Windows XP on it.You can either get a copy of XP and then easily later on find the drivers on the internet or find the recovery disk(s) on which you already have XP OS together with all the drivers.
But to tell you the truth I always hated recovery disks.They install operating system PLUS TONS of stupid programs.The hell with that lol.
The best way is to format the entire HDD and install ONLY XP on it and later the drivers.




Cheers!
 
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