Hello. I bought a used Dell 5150 laptop. Pretty fast computer with 1 Gig of ram, 3.06 Ghz. I see that it doesn't have any floppy drive. I want to get rid of all the windows XP pro and other crap dell puts on the computer and install 2000. Now, the only way I know how to do the reformatting stuff is with a boot disk (floppy disk) by using the FDISK command. Well, last time I did it was many years ago so I have to revisit the whole issue. Don't remember well. But anyway, I always did it by using a floppy and now I don't have a floppy drive. I have the 2000 CD. 1. How can I reformat this drive that has XP on it if I don't have a floppy drive? 2. Would there be 2000 drivers for all this new hardware? I just want your opinion. Maybe you have done this procedure before with this same system and know something about it. More than one reply is welcomed. Thanks in advance.

ai think you can just put a win 98 cd rom in and use it the same way as a boot disk. Why downgrade thoygh...I dont think u should have any driver problems but tyou can never be sure

You should be able to boot from the Windows 2000 CD. Go into the BIOS and set the CD Drive as first boot device. Press F2 to enter the BIOS as soon as you hear the POST bleep. All the necessary formatting can be done from the CD. Delete the existing partition recreate it and format it. Stuart

I wouldn't dump XP Pro. It's the same system as Win2K only fluffed up a little. You can perform the same functions with XP Pro. You can get rid of the dell stuff. There's a program out there that does that, but I can't remember where I saw it. maybe someone else will reply. Good Luck. When all is said and done More is said than done..

Or try here for ubcd. It will do all you want. -http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/download.html Please post back within 24 hours or I will delete the post from my follow up list. Thanks. It would be a courtesy if you would post back and let us know if the fix worked or not.

Hi guys. Thank you for all your posts. Well, I think 2000 is more secure than XP don't you think? Anyway, when I boot from the 2000 CD what program I should be looking for? I want to erase the whole hard drive (it is divided in 2 partitions C:\ and D:\) and install 2000. If I can't find the drivers later on I pop in the XP restore that came with computer to bring computer to factory state.

Well, I think 2000 is more secure than XP don't you think? No. Especially if you have SP2 installed. I am not familiar with the Windows 2000 boot disk, but if it is anything like Windows XP, somewhere along the line you will get the option the delete partitions and then recreate them. Just read the on-screen instructions. Stuart