Have both XP and Windows 7 installed on computer BUT..

1Bowtie · 19 Sep 2009

Hi missdeadlocks and welcome to the forums

Upgradeing from XP couldn't be done, so i think he installed over XP and if that's the case i don't think the hidden partition with XP on it will be there if you format the drive. Your probably going to need the XP disk and do a clean install of XP.

Smitty

DocBrown · 19 Sep 2009

Or you could tell you husband he messed up & now he needs to buy you a new computer & that Gucci purse you wanted. That will make everything better. :)

whs · 19 Sep 2009

The "built in reformat" is the recovery partition - usually D:. If this was eliminated during the W7 installation, then you have no way to reinstall XP without an installation disk.

zigzag3143 · 19 Sep 2009

missdeadlocks said:

I have tried admin. I even added a password to my account and it doesnt work. I realized I can't get into XP because Windows 7 overrided it when my husband upgraded. Frusterating because I would not have overrided XP, i would have partitioned the drive and had both. But since it happened and I can't change that. I have to tap into the computers built in reformat which I can't find. It's located somewhere on the PC but I dont know where. Usually we found it by hitting F8 upon start up, since we upgraded its not there. However, our old files are still on the computer from XP. It carried over..i have to find out where in the pc that is.

MDL

Im dense this morning so you want to go to xp and want to remove win 7. Do you have an XP disk, or recvory xp disk that came with the computer?

Is there any data on the computer that you cant live without?

If there isnt anything on the drive that you need, you can boot from the xp dvd and re-install xp.

Is that what you want?

Ken

missdeadlocks · 19 Sep 2009

whs: Ok well, I do see my recovery drive is still there and full. Now i have to figure out how to access it upon start up. The F10 option is no longer there.
Here is what I see. http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n...adlocks/PC.jpg

Seems my HP recovery is still there...YIPPIE! So, any idea how I can access it from boot up to reformat?

DocBrown · 19 Sep 2009

I think you are going to need a Win XP CD to do a repair install

SquonkSC · 19 Sep 2009

missdeadlocks said:

I have tried admin. I even added a password to my account and it doesnt work. I realized I can't get into XP because Windows 7 overrided it when my husband upgraded. Frusterating because I would not have overrided XP, i would have partitioned the drive and had both. But since it happened and I can't change that. I have to tap into the computers built in reformat which I can't find. It's located somewhere on the PC but I dont know where. Usually we found it by hitting F8 upon start up, since we upgraded its not there. However, our old files are still on the computer from XP. It carried over..i have to find out where in the pc that is.

It's because win7 uses an entirely different way to boot.

If you can get your hands on an orinigal XP cd, you can boot from it and run "fdisk /mbr" from the prompt.

That will overwrite the Win7 booter and set the mbr back to XP

Then you should have the F8 back.

greetz

Bare Foot Kid · 19 Sep 2009

missdeadlocks said:

whs: Ok well, I do see my recovery drive is still there and full. Now i have to figure out how to access it upon start up. The F10 option is no longer there.
Here is what I see. http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n...adlocks/PC.jpg

Seems my HP recovery is still there...YIPPIE! So, any idea how I can access it from boot up to reformat?

The HP machine I had was F12; from a cold start, start tapping the F12 key to see if you get the "Recovery Option" sometimes it takes more than one try.

Barman58 · 19 Sep 2009

It may be possible to utilise the recovery partition that is still on the drive - even if the F key method is not available.

To do this you need to make the recovery partition the active partition which is waht the recovery system does automatically,

OK to do this you will need to get access to the disk structure from outside windows,

Partition Wizard Bootable CD allows user to boot computer directly to manage partition.

is a free bootable CD which will allow you to perform the required changes

download the .iso file and write this to a cd using a suitable ISO writing application such as imageburn

once you have this cd ready you should insert the disk and re-boot the system.

in the application that appears select the recovery partition and make this active - remove the CD and again reboot -

the recovery process should start automatically.

not an easy solution but it's a complex situation.

an alternative would be to borrow an xp disk from a friend or family member and use your key to install

DocBrown · 19 Sep 2009

Just reread your first post again. Did you install the Microsoft Office Live Add-In ?

So you could use it with your website !