Reformat the HDD using XP home disk to restore PC.?

You need to enter the BIOS and set the computer to boot to cd as first boot. Then when you put the cd in the drive, the computer will first boot to that.

And I assume that you have partitioned your hdd and XP pro is on one of them, so you may be able to choose XP home, and use disk manager to format the partition that the pro is on. Disk manager is in Computer Management and that is in Administrative Tools.

Otherwise, just repartition the drive and format using the XP home disk.

First thing, STOP reformatting.

Ok now about the CD boot, To enable you computer to boot from the CD you need get into your BIOS. "Keep in mind the BIOS is the heart of your computer DO NOT change anything that you do not understand, actually just change what is advised.

In order to get into your BIOS: While the computer is doing the initial memory check you need to press either "Del" "F8" or "F6" or on eof the special keys depending on the manufacturer of you PC.

Once inside BIOS you will have a GUI usually with amenu on the top or the right side look for something that says "BOOT UP" or "BOOT SEQUENCE" or something to that effect.

Once you click there you will he something like

first HDD1

Second CD

what you need to do is move the CD to the first position. tehre should be instructions how to perform this operation, once this is done simply quit and save adn get out of the BIOS.

After you get out the PC will reboot and will try to boot from teh CD or at least it should.

Now for the installation. Windows installtion should be running once this is done it will ask you in what drive you want to istall, what you can do if first delete the partitions avaliable is you had tried to install XP Pro and Home there are probably 2 partitions, delete both partitions so you can have a clean install.

READ the instructions carefully to delete the partitions. After this is done is jsut the usual installation, the system will ask you to format (I know i said no more formatting) the HDD do a fast format and you should be OK.

I hope that helps.

Restart you computer, as it is starting up, before anything appears on your monitor you should here a beep. Start hitting F2 or Delete or whatever takes you into your computer's CMOS setup screen.

Once there, look for boot options. You will have the option to boot to floppy drive (if you have one), boot to hard drive, boot to CD-ROM, and if your BIOS is new enough, even boot to USB.

Make sure boot to CD-ROM is before hard drive.

Well you could always reformat your HD, but I'd instead recommend calling Microsoft Support they may be able to help you with a much faster and less painful workaround. With a legal purchase of XP professional, you get three free support calls to microsoft.

You need to boot to the cd and delete the partitions, then create one, then format the drive

You must enter BIOS and set it to boot from CD

a Recovery disc is an image of the disc you made it on, so unless the other PC is exactly the same, same specs etc then no

edit boot.ini and remove the path for the XP prof

click on the start button. the help and support section tells you how