My dad has a "new" Dell Laptop running Windows Xp home....and i went to do a clean install, i used my 6 winxp pro startup diskettes, and on the last disk the computer screen said something about installation process has been stopped to keep your computer safe.....Or so ..........i think dell put something in the computer to not allow people to install windows xp pro.........? So now i am going to reformat the hard-drive and do a clean install...........Is there any good and easy programs to reformat a harddrive......? And also is there a good backup tool, that i can backup my entire computer to cd-r's.......? I found a couple but none save to multiple cd's...... thanks

Some Dells came with a reinstall CD and some came with a full installation disk. You need to go into the BIOS and make the CD the first boot device. The floppy disk set is only for computers that, for some reason or other, cannot boot from the CD. Either way, you don't need the six disk floppy set. With the installation disk you boot from the CD and follow the instructions. This will wipe the drive and put you back where you were you where when the computer was new. If you have the full installation disk, again boot from the CD and follow the instructions. The full installation disk gives you a bit more control over what happens. AS far as I am aware Dell don't put anything on their computers to prevent you installing whatever OS you chose. I have laptop the original came with Windows 98 and is now quite happily running Windows XP. Stuart

Hey Stuart, just in case you missed it, I suggest you read ReyJ's original thread HERE so you will know where he's coming from. i_XpUser

I still don't understand why you're doing what you're doing. I checked the other thread & it still doesn't help. Unless you have a need for the added options of XP Pro (listed in the other thread), XP Home will run everything & there should be no difference in speed. You said you "went to do a clean install, i used my 6 winxp pro startup diskettes", which you should now know is NOT the way to do it. But in the next line, you say, "now i am going to reformat the hard-drive and do a clean install"...isn't that what you started to do to begin with?? You should be able to just pop in the XP Pro CD, boot off it, & update XP Home to XP Pro without formatting or losing any data. http://www.windowsreinstall.com/winxppro/installxpwindowsupgrade/part1.htm ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP2