windows vista home basic

[#1]

i hate it its horrid    try  to format my laptop it wont let me says it needs windows vista i like xp home eddition but why isnt it allowing me to reformatt and put windows xp on any body got any ideas?

[#2]

Do you have a valid XP install disk with a valid license - not OEM
If so you can do it from that disk

[#3]

yes ive have as my husband has xp put it  in starts loading then stops tells me i dont have authoriseation to do it plus the disc is an older version than is set on the pc.........im not giving trying yet any ideas i have to do a command prompt to chkdsk but it didnt do it typed in format c still didnt do anything scratching my head at the moment and suggestion greatly appreciated

[#4]

I think you are approaching it from the wrong direction.
However before looking at that - you say it is your husbands copy of XP.
Is he still using it and, if not, is it a full copy not OEM or upgrade.
If it is a full copy and he doesn't use it - it has been uninstalled - and you have the activation code then you can install it.
But to do it you must change the boot sequence of your PC to boot first from the CD/DVD drive and then boot up with the XP CD in the drive

[#5]

the boot sequence is set to cd drive it tells me that the xp disk is an older version than whats already installed excuse the punn but i think i bought a bummer,may have to get a new hard drive because nothing i do is working and it is a valid xp copy

[#6]

have you tried creating a boot CD either Linux or BartPE and working from that

[#7]

HI silverfoxy,
It sounds like you're trying to put the disk in when vista has already loaded, or it's not booting from the CD (then loading vista, then trying to run the CD). Usually you'll get a message shortly after the post screen (the one where it tells you what processor and how much ram is installed) asking you to push any key to boot from CD - is this happening?

[#8]

From memory, the first thing a Windows install does is to check your hard drive to see if there is already a version of Windows installed.  If there is and it is later than the version you are trying to install if objects and refuses to go any further.  The answer is to reformat your hard drive.....  which is where you came in.  So do what OldJim suggests: Boot from a live LINUX cd and use that to reformat C: to anything you like - ext3 is probably easiest.  (But make sure you have taken anything valuable off the disk first!!)  Then boot from your XP cd and you should have no further problems:  it will not like the ext3 partition and will ask you if you want to reformat to NTFS - say Yes (I think the option was " Use whole drive" .
Hope this helps.

[#9]

its not permitting me to format cant even  do a dos command will not formatt cant change it seems that the only option that i have is to get a new hard drive to sort it

[#10]

If you are set to boot from the CD/DVD in the BIOS options, then when the XP CD is in the drive, you should get a message when you boot, to press any key to boot from CD. If you press a key, the XP install sequence should begin.  It dosnt matter what version of windows you have on your HDD, as its not loaded yet.  One XP goes though all its stuff, you should get a screen telling you that it has found an install of windows.  There should be some options to delete the partition. Do that, and say yes to all the warnings, and the partition will be wiped along with Vista, and all your files. You should then create a partition, and then let the Install sequence do its thing.  BE VERY SURE that there is nothing on the vista install that you want.
I have never tried installing XP over Vista, but the above should work....

[#11]

I suspect you are not actually booting from the CD, but are trying to run it from within Vista. You can't reformat a drive if you are running within an operating system on that drive. Can you confirm that you see the "Press any key to boot from CD" message when you start up?
If not, try pressing the F12 key repeatedly when it starts, and you should get a boot menu. Use the arrow keys to highlight the CD drive and press Enter