computer problems...

[signrios]

Here's the deal, im trying to fix my wife's sony laptop, i'm doing an xp clean install
it starts loading a bunch of files and right after i press f8 it gives me a message that reads " searching for previous versions of microsoft windows... "
and it gets stuck doesn't go anywhere!!!

any suggestions?

 

[Techman]

clear all partitions.. Do not format..

 

[SignBurst PCs]

Curtis,

I don't think that he can get to that portion of the install if he freezes after F8.

It has been a while since I loaded XP, so I could be wrong.

You can do it from the command line in Recovery Console, but that is more of an advanced road.

I might do a chkdsk from the Recovery Console. You may have drive issues.

 

[choucove]

If you are planning to do a completely clean installation of XP and don't mind losing whatever previous data was on the disk, then just do a full disk wipe with a diskwipe utility. This will write 0's or 1's to the entire disk erasing all previous data which SHOULD stop the application from freezing when it's searching for a previous XP installation.

You can get several different diskwipe utilities for free. I have used DBAN several times, available here. It creates a bootable CD and should be pretty simple walkthroughs of how to use it on their website. It is a pretty simple tool, but be prepared that it may take some time to complete the job.