One more question... about formatting.

[Matt08642]

So I have Parted Magic. I want to format my drive and reinstall Windows XP Media Center Edition. I'm... attaining... a CD, and I have a legal CD key (sticker on the side of my computer AND from a CD key finding program.)

If I wipe my ENTIRE drive (including the "compaq backup partition", will inserting the XP CD and entering my CD Key work?

Thanks

 

[peterhuang913]

It should work.

 

[carnageX]

Just use the MCE disc... It'll format your partition for you when you go to reinstall (pick the option to format over the existing install). Unless you want to get rid of the backup partition that compaq made, as well. But you could just delete that partition during Windows setup, as well.

 

[Matt08642]

So here is the CD I got...

If I delete the stupid "crack" folder, will it just be a regular CD that I can enter my product key and activate on? Should I just burn the remaining files as a Data DVD?

EDIT: Or could I just run that setup...

 

[carnageX]

You can just leave it on there. The only way that would work is if you were to manually browse the CD once you burned it, and ran whatever files were in that folder. So you can just leave it there if you want, and just burn the ISO file to a disc. That's what I did with an OEM copy of XP that I downloaded (needed the disc to reinstall XP on an HP comp).

 

[Matt08642]

Dammit, I deleted the ISO by mistake...

I'll get ti again and proceed...

Also, should I burn it and boot from it, or just insert the disc and click on setup.exe?

 

[carnageX]

You'll want to boot off of it.