How do i wipe hard drive on laptop clean so i can install windows xp using my desktop xp disc?

Question

Hi,I was hoping someone could help me i just bought a used gateway solo 2500 laptop notebook its my first laptop i want to see how i like them before buying a brand new one.I would like to wipe out the software that's on it and install windows xp it has Xubuntu Operating System, I'm still learning out to find things on it. I also have a desk top that is gateway i don't have any of the drive disc for the laptop and was wondering if the ones from my desktop would work for it or i could go to gateway.com and get them i think. I don't want to mess up the laptop this is what i know about it (this is what i know from the previous owner)Gateway Solo 2500, with a 300 MHZ Intel Celeron processor, 256MB installed memory, with an Linksys 2.4GHZ 802.11 wireless-G card with SRX technology and with the Xubuntu Operating System installed (it will run XP too, but the Linux Xubuntu OS works great with it)The unit has a CD ROM, floppy, regular input outputs, 2 USB ports, VGA.All help would be so appreciated thanks,

Answer 1

Put in your Windows Xp disk, restart the laptop, then when it's loading it should say boot from a disk [F6] or something like that.  Then you boot from the disk.  It will ask you if you want to create a new partition.  Delete the Partition that is already there and then Create a new one and then run the rest of the setup.

There you go.

Answer 2

You don't need to "wipe" anything before you install a new Operating system (winXP in this case.)

When you insert the installing CD into the CD-ROM, the computer will boot from the CD and ask you some question. One of those question will be that if you want to reformat the drive you want to install the Operating system on. If you answer is yes, you want to reformat and change file system to NTFS, the computer will do it automatically for you.

remember to read and understand the instruction during the installation.

Answer 3

My guess is that you won't be happy with the speed of this old of a computer running XP. It will probably run slow, as XP needs 256 RAM as a mininum. Find a W2K (2000) or Windows 98 OS, and you will be happier.