Desperately need legal boot disk for WINXP

[Faye]

I'm rather new here, but I'll try to be breif as possible.

When the CP manufacturer does not supply an OS disk with the new PC, but has 8 System Recovery CDs, that are available for a fee (or better still they insist that you make a set immediately)...is there truly not any way to "work around" this? I've tried all kinds of programs and applications that are supposed to help me make a boot CD, which includes burning all the files in i386 onto a CD-R. None of it has worked.

Suppose I want to reinstall Windows, but have no use for all the HP Crap that is included on the 8 Recovey CDs? It takes me several days to remove that mess. Most HP programs will not respond to Add/Remove, nor do they offer any uninstall options for their programs...and editing the Registry is what got me in trouble in the first place (the second and third time also).

The other alternative is to buy a full version of WIN XP Home from Office Depot or Circuit City for $200, which is way beyond my budget. If anyone has any solutions about making an OS CD, I'm open for advice.

Do you guys remember when you needed to repair something in WIN 98, and you simply inserted the OS CD?

Faye

[bookworm]

Originally Posted by Faye

I'm rather new here, but I'll try to be breif as possible.

When the CP manufacturer does not supply an OS disk with the new PC, but has 8 System Recovery CDs, that are available for a fee (or better still they insist that you make a set immediately)...is there truly not any way to "work around" this? I've tried all kinds of programs and applications that are supposed to help me make a boot CD, which includes burning all the files in i386 onto a CD-R. None of it has worked.

Suppose I want to reinstall Windows, but have no use for all the HP Crap that is included on the 8 Recovey CDs? It takes me several days to remove that mess. Most HP programs will not respond to Add/Remove, nor do they offer any uninstall options for their programs...and editing the Registry is what got me in trouble in the first place (the second and third time also).

The other alternative is to buy a full version of WIN XP Home from Office Depot or Circuit City for $200, which is way beyond my budget. If anyone has any solutions about making an OS CD, I'm open for advice.

Do you guys remember when you needed to repair something in WIN 98, and you simply inserted the OS CD?

Faye

Take a look at this, I think this is what you are looking for, it's pretty lenghty http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Hope this helps

[Faye]

Originally Posted by bookworm

Take a look at this, I think this is what you are looking for, it's pretty lenghty http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Hope this helps

Barbara, Thanks for responding so fast, and you're right, it is rather lengthy, as well as very complicated! You see, I had already found that after reading the article in the current issue of PC World. I have the 13-page tutorial which I printed from the PE Builder website. I truly thought it was the answer to my prayers. LOL But something went wrong, and I can't make it work.
And I have been hasseling with this sucker for 4 days now.

I read it an re-read it. I copied the i386 folder (the one with all the necessary files such as WINNT32.EXE, REDEDIT.EXE, EXPAND.EXE)+ maybe 1500 more files...and burned it to CD.

I burned the other info that enabled me to make a boot disk. I took my time and made sure I followed the instructions explicitly.

All seemed to go well, from boot up and reformatting the hard drive, then from the Winnt32.exe file...it opened the blue Welcome to Windows page, asked a few questions (I had to type in my WPA), then began copying files and preparing system for install. It tells me it will take 30-40 min (I think that's the correct minutes). I sat back and just waited.

Well , when Windows started up, it had not even reformatted the hard drive evidently. It still had some of the same old corrupted files, and the same old HP Program files, that I was trying so hard to get rid of. Some of the Windows files were lost and some stuff was scattered here and there...heck I thought a tonado had hit!

Anyway my PC is barely functioning, no viruses nor malware...all Windows and Microsoft Updates are installed. Everything is dis-organized, and it's almost like it has ADHD or even worse...Alzheimers! LOL

My last resort would be to do still another HP System Recovery using the 8 Recovery CDs. There just has to be a program that someone has written that can separate the Windows from the HP Garbage, and be able to burn the CD with only windows and a boot prompt/command. Well, maybe a small utility that takes care of the File Management. I could deal with the other stuff by downloading and installing utilities and applications from Microsoft until I got it fully functional.

I think the BartPe was just too complicated for my feeble brain. I'm not giving up on this, yet. I just can't afford to buy a stand-alone version of Win XP Home.

Thanks again.

[sourcez]

You should try deleting the partition when you reinstall windows - when it goves you the option of which partition do you want to install windows on, delete the partition (make sure all of your files are backed up) and then create a new partition back in the place where the old one was. This is a sure way of removing all data as i before had your problem on an IBM which would not format the HDD so i had to find another way.

Also (and you should be careful here) you could go to ebay and look for XP boot discs.

Anyways, hope this helped!

[MacG]

Originally Posted by Faye

I'm rather new here, but I'll try to be brief as possible.

When the PC manufacturer does not supply an OS disk with the new PC, but has 8 System Recovery CDs, that are available for a fee (or better still they insist that you make a set immediately)...is there truly not any way to "work around" this? I've tried all kinds of programs and applications that are supposed to help me make a boot CD, which includes burning all the files in i386 onto a CD-R. None of it has worked.

Suppose I want to reinstall Windows, but have no use for all the HP Crap that is included on the 8 Recovey CDs? It takes me several days to remove that mess. Most HP programs will not respond to Add/Remove, nor do they offer any uninstall options for their programs...and editing the Registry is what got me in trouble in the first place (the second and third time also).

The other alternative is to buy a full version of WIN XP Home from Office Depot or Circuit City for $200, which is way beyond my budget. If anyone has any solutions about making an OS CD, I'm open for advice.

Do you guys remember when you needed to repair something in WIN 98, and you simply inserted the OS CD?

Faye

Hello Faye, Have you ever thought of drive imaging?

I am just wondering if a third party uninstaller will remove the HP programs for you, such as CCLeaner.

Clean install with the HP recovery program, uninstall the programs you don't want, then make a primary drive image as a base install to work from.

Add the programs you use, including your AV program, go online, update the AV, and run a full scan first of all, then update the operating system.

Get everything tuned to your liking, clean up the system, and make a secondary drive image which will be your working copy.