reinstalling win xp with no floppy drive

[c44151]

I have a computer custom build at a computer store. It has no floppy drive. Now I need to re-install win xp home oem and You can do this by phoning microsoft to reactivate your xp home. With the no floppy will it just boot from the xp cd or do I need a floppy. I have xp runing now is there any special thing I need to do I have already saved the files I need, the others I can easly re-install.note the computer store did the instalation for me.

[c44151]

incase you can not understand I will try to simplify. Have win xp home oem on my comuter now, need to reinstall but have no floppy drive just cd's(cd-r-rw+dvd-rom). Can I do this by just wiping my hard drive clean, restart with cd in and go or is there any thing special I need to do

[vass0922]

Depends on 2 things

1. Is the CD Bootable? 99% of the time yes they are, but it depends ... make sure before you format

2. Is your PC new enough to support booting to CD? I'm gonna guess yes, but again check before formatting...

Your safest bet would be to format from within XP's setup so you KNOW you can get into the setup before formatting

Welcome To TechIMO

Make sure you have any necessary drivers.. primarily for odd IDE controllers... this is the only place I've gotten stuck on the setup (Abit BE6-II has a HPT 366 controller that for some bizarre reason MS has never included teh drivers in Win2k or XP's setup)

[Telexen]

You won't find many systems that won't boot to a cd that support Windows XP

Just make sure you have the first boot device set to CDROM in the BIOS...and you shouldn't have a problem

[VHockey86]

Just a note, you'll have to go into your BIOS (normally DEL, F1, or F2), look for "Press ?? to enter setup"
90% of the time you need to change the boot order from
Floppy-->HDD-->CD-ROM so that it looks like this: Floppy-->CD-ROM-->HDD, this makes it so it will try to boot from the CD without automatically going into your windows on the HDD. (you prolly already knew all this but im just clarifying/bored so im typing lots)

---- Edit ----
Beat me by 1 min =(

[c44151]

I got the computer feb this year so I am thinking that it is safe to do this. when I restart with the cd in it registers it before you get the star up screen. you know would you like to boot from the cd

[VHockey86]

... im confused by that last post. Are you relaying what the computer says or asking what will happen?

It will simply say after the POST, something like "Searching CD-ROM for Boot"
then on the next line
"Press any key to boot form CD-ROM...."
then itl'll goto a blue screen where it will load a bunch of drivers for about ... 2 mins, then you'll get into the actual setup

[c44151]

when I turn on my computer and it does the start up (pres del to enter set up) then it detects the xp home cd in the drive asking would you like to boot from the cd

[c44151]

the pres del is just a you know thing like you know you need to start the car to go up the hill kind a thing

[Xpander]

and to add in my bit, i don't think you have to wipe the hardrive either. I think you can reinstall XP in a way that only reinstalls the windows files so that you can keep all your data on your hardisks.