Reinstalling Windows XP

[magus_spirit]

I want to reinstall Windows XP and in the process get rid of EVERYTHING on this computer. I hear the only way to do this is by running the disc on startup. I don't wnat to save any files, it's easy enough to just download them again. So I have the disc in, and i shut down my computer. I turn it back on and at the first screen I see (Asus screen; my motherboard is Asus P4P800S) I press delete to enter setup. From the setup menu, I don't know where to go to run the disc. Could someone please help me?

Also, the reason I can't reinstall after the computer has started and I'm in my account (not as though I don't want to) is because with the new windows updates, a message stating that I cannot reinstall because my Windows XP disc contains a previous version of Windows. Wow, that's quite the run-on sentence. Anyways, all I really want to know is how to run the Windows XP disc from the setup menu. If it's noe possible for some reason, then I's appreciate it if someone were to tell me how to do a clean installation. Thank you in advance.

[pip22]

You are right about having to go into the BIOS setup. You need to look for the BIOS page where it has an entry for 'BOOT SEQUENCE' and entries for '1st BOOT DEVICE' '2nd BOOT DEVICE' etc. The one you need to change is '1st BOOT DEVICE'. Change this to 'CD-ROM' by pressing 'Page Up' or 'Page Down' on keyboard. Then exit the BIOS and when it asks if you want to save new setting, press 'Y' for Yes, then press ENTER. The system will now reboot and read the setup from the Windows CD. If you haven't put the CD in yet, just put it in and reboot again.

If you never boot from a floppy (which most XP users never do)
you can leave the BIOS setting as it is for CD-ROM as first boot-device. It won't do any harm and it will then be ready to do a re-install for next time without having to go into the BIOS again.
Just make sure you don't leave any bootable CD in the drive
unintentionally.

[Jazz]

Clean Install Windows XP