I'm having such trouble. I bought a used Dell Inspirion laptop computer from eBay and all I want to do is erase Windows XP which is installed on it and install Windows 2000 (which I prefer over the annoying a buggy XP) from CD-Rom disc. I would not have though that too complicated a task but I've been at for several hours now. I tried getting help at the computer furums at eBay but everything this guy suggested didn't work for me and I think it might have messed something up.

I had assumed that when I ran the Windows 2000 install disc that there would be some prompt asking if I wanted to reformat my drive and install Windows 2000 (like there usually is when you're installing OS). Instead, I got an error message that said the set-up was disabled because that version of Windows is older than the one currently on the system (duh lol).

The guy at the other forums said I'd need to delete the partition of the drive (C drive) on which Windows XP installed, however I don't know how to do that. He gave me a link to download Windows 98 boot disc file (boot98se.exe) and told me how to MAKE disc from the file he gave me but when I tried it, it didn't work like his explanation had said it would and I got confused and it seemed like the computer was doing something that I didn't understand and I didn't know how to get out of that menu or stop it so I just shut the computer off.

He then said to insert the CD-Rom for the Windows XP (which is just an re-installation disc for the SOFTWARE provided by Dell) and then to press D button when it got to this menu (I had to first change the boot order in BIOS so that the CD-Rom would boot first when I started the computer). He gave me further instruciton to get through menus but none of what he'd explained is what heppened when I tried pressing "D" and I didn't any menus like he described. This proceedure did not work when I tried booting from the Windows 2000 CD-Rom disk either.

This is totally frustrating! I'm about to just take the computer and get a new hard drive rather than sit through any more hours of trying to figure out how to do something which I assumed to be relatively simple as deleting operating system software.

I've had to delete OS in the past on other computers and it was never any problem. The discs always had that option when I LOADED them to reformat the hard drive and install the software from the disc but neither of these discs seems to have that option.
What model laptop is this?

What state is it in now? Will Windows XP still load?

This should get you a working bootdisk for what you need to do:
http://www.cse.unr.edu/~kvero/Bootdisks/wbootess.exe

The push 'D' thing he was talking about works on an actual Windows XP install, but not most restore programs. He was trying to tell you how to delete the partition using Windows XP setup, but since that's not what you're doing, it won't work.

It won't be necessary for you to go to the expense of buying a new hard drive. We'll get this sorted out for you, just be patient. Thanks The latop which I am trying to delete the software on is a Dell Inspirion 4150. It seems to run okay. I was worried I might have messed something up when I used the Windows 98 SE boot disc he had told me to use. He was saying it could be used to delete the partition but when I booted from the disk it seemed to have installed something and then I got a very long bunch of text on a grey screen that was saying about the hard drive being larger than 2gb and asking if I was sure I wanted to change something that it saying it was going to change about the hard drive and a warning that I could not use that section of the hard drive then in the future if I MADE those changes. I panicked and tried getting off that screen by pressing ESC and stuff but it wasn't working so I shut the computer off by switching off the power button. When I re-booted it normally there was an error screen about an error that it had and suggested I just restart from the last configuration that was working properly so I selected that and it seemed to sort that out. But I don't know what, if anything, was changed or rearranged by my having used that boot disc and whether or not deleting the C drive partition would erase that anyway.When I clicked on the link in your post is just said

"Forbidden. You don't have permission to access /~kvero/Bootdisks/wbootess.exe on this server."A friend of mine purchased a new laptop with vista preinstalled on it. He prefered XP because it required less memory to run compared to vista. He couldn't install XP using the installation disc, so he had to bring the machine to a computer shop to get vista removed. perhaps this is an alternate option?

(you will be charged)Yes, perhaps I could do that. I didn't know a computer repair shop could erase your hard drive for you but it would certainly save me further aggravation Sorry, looks like I can't directly link to the file.

Go here instead:
http://www.cse.unr.edu/~kvero/BootDisks.htm

And download Boot Disk Essentials.No don't bring it to a computer shop. There's a much easier (and cheaper) solution.
If you want to wipe the harddrive completely I suggest DBAN. If you run that on the laptop the harddrive will be wiped clean and you should have no problem installing win2k on it. quaxo: How should I use the file once I have downloaded it?


deerpark: I might try the software you mentioned if I can't get other methods to work. Thanks for mentioning it!

The computer I'm trying to wipe out is not the one with internet service though so I'm wary about downloading that program to the computer which I'm currently using, even though they assure that running the program in order to make the disk would not delete the files on the computer which you run the program.Don't worry you cannot accidentally wipe anything. In order to even be able to run DBAN you will need to PUT it on a floppy/CD/usb drive and restart the computer with the media in the computer. And even if you managed to get DBAN started on the wrong computer you will still have to acknowledge you want to wipe the drive.I downloaded and tried each version of the Dban software but could not get it to work. I tried the one where you save to CD-Rom and the one where you save it to floppy diskette and I even trued saving it to USB but none of the verisons worked when I tried booting the computer with them. It would just go to black screen for a few moments and then load Windows as usual. I wasn't able to try it with the USB drive after I had saved the program to the drive since that laptop computer would not boot from USB (I didn't see the option on the boot order menu).

I am am still back to square one trying to erase Windows XP. It's like it's a virus or something!So,how do you have your boot options set in the BIOS ?

If the laptop has a floppy drive travel to bootdisk.com.
DLoad a WinME bootdisk and use the file to create a bootable floppy.
Re-boot with the floppy in.
At the A: prompt type format C: /u and hit Enter.
For Volume label just hit Enter for none.
Put in your Win2K CD and re-boot and the setup process will start.