Vista to XP

[chris ashdown]

Morning folks

I have a computer which has Vista installed and need to install XP Pro onto it instead of Vista

How do I do it as when i insert the disk it stops me saying version on computer is newer than new software

[Duncan Rounding]

You'll have to format the drive first.
Or get a new hard drive and swap out the Vista one and then load XP. You could use the old Vista drive as a backup.

[chris ashdown]

can i go to c: and format from there?

Sorry for ignorance but never done any since msdos days

[NormanRouxel]

You should be able to do this by booting from the XP CD/DVD. There will be an option to completely replace the C drive somewhere in the startup dialogues. There's also a Recovery Console available that gets you to a DOS prompt. The DOS command would be "format C:". Remember that this is effectively bye-bye to everything on that drive so be careful.

[chris ashdown]

Thanks Norman

[Darren B]

are you sorted now chris? if not let me know

[chris ashdown]

Thanks Darren but sorted, just not the sort of thing i do every day

Oh those marvelous things you could do with drdos or msdos on a 3.5 inch floppy in my day or even the larger real floppy's

Life was so simple

[Duncan Rounding]

...or the even larger real floppys (8 iinch) - those were the days Chris - I remember them well. LOL

[NormanRouxel]

I have a Cromemco System 3 in my attic that boots off a proper 8" floppy. Would only power it on now with a big CO2 fire extinguisher at the ready - its PSU is B I G and the smoothing capacitors are humongous (and 25 years old)!

[jont]

I have a Cromemco System 3 in my attic that boots off a proper 8" floppy. Would only power it on now with a big CO2 fire extinguisher at the ready - its PSU is B I G and the smoothing capacitors are humongous (and 25 years old)!

I'm sure I have read that story on www.geek-porn.com .. it ends with the dot matix printer churning out a side view of a Spitfire made up of X's on 6 sheets of continuous feed paper.

[Duncan Rounding]

Some good pics of it here http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/...-CROMEMCO.html

That's not your attic is it Norman?

[NormanRouxel]

Not my attic. Mine has more stuff. Even have the 2 tables that were necessary to hold the CS3 and it's NEC spinwiter printer. Lovely, colourful 50-way ribbon cable that connects the two.

I forget the girl in the picture's name but I recall taking her for lunch in Cupertino circa 1983.

[NormanRouxel]

You know when you open any computer magazine, you skip past the Dell ad on the inside front cover. Once upon a time (before Michael Dell was born perhaps) it was us on that page. Here's our ad from Personal Computer World 1980. It may well be one of those systems that's lurking upstairs.

[Duncan Rounding]

...I forget the girl in the picture's name but I recall taking her for lunch in Cupertino circa 1983.

So that was the old flame hey.