Uno de los principales problemas que se encuentra un usuario de Windows, es que cada cierto tiempo, el ordenador se llena de “basura” y su rendimiento y velocidad se ve reducido bastante. ¿Qué podemos hacer ante ésto? Pues seguramente, la mejor opción sea la de formatear el disco duro y reinstalar Windows XP.
Contrary to what many people think, formatting the computer and installing Windows is easier than it may seem, and you just have to keep a few things in mind to ensure that you will not have any problems during the installation.
1. Change the First Boot Device to cd-rom in the BIOS.
The First Boot Device (or primary boot drive) is the drive from which it will load when the computer starts. We want to load the Windows XP cd, so we want the First Boot Device to be the cd-rom drive.
To change it, we must enter the computer’s BIOS by pressing the “Delete” key when it is booting (it can also be other keys), and change it in its options.
Loading the disk
Once we reach this point, the computer should already be able to read boot disks, so we insert the Windows XP CD and restart the computer. After the bios loads, we will encounter a message: “Press any key to boot from CD”. We press a key, and then the loading of files from the CD will begin. When the charging is finished, we will see a blue screen with several options:
We press ENTER since we want to install Windows (later we can format).
On the next screen, we will have to accept the Windows XP conditions of use, so when we have read them, we will press “F8”.
Deleting a partition
At this point, if we already have a copy of Windows XP installed, we will be informed of this, so we will have to press Escape to perform a new installation. The screen that will appear next will give us choose the partition on which we want Windows XP to be installed, so we mark the one we want and press the “D” key (Delete partition) and then “L” to confirm.
Next, we choose the unpartitioned space where we want to install Windows XP and press ENTER. (CAUTION: We should not choose the one that says 8MB in size).
Choosing the partition format
We can choose several formats for the partition:
- Format partition using fast NTFS file system
- Format partition using fast FAT file system
- Format partition using NTFS file system
- Format partition using FAT file system
In Windows XP, it is best to choose “Format the partition using the NTFS file system” since it is the default format of Windows XP and in theory its file management is faster than FAT32. Once chosen, press ENTER and it will begin to format the disk, which may take more or less depending on its size.
Once it is formatted, the Windows XP installation data will begin to be copied, but that is another story. ;)