Doing a Clean Install of Windows XP on a Computer System

Installing a New Copy of Microsoft Windows XP on a PC

From time to time it can be really useful to reinstall Windows onto a PC. Doing a clean install once a year can help keep your system running smoothly, and wipe out a lot of the junk that you may have accumulated over time.

As with any type of OS installation make sure that prior to doing this you have backed up any important data you do not want to lose.

Once your data has been backed up you are ready to do a clean install of Windows. Whether you are reinstalling over your old Windows installation or installing Windows onto a new computer you just bought or built, this guide will walk you through the process in the easiest way possible.

Follow These Steps to Do a Clean Installation of Windows XP

The first thing you need to do is make sure the boot order is set correctly in your BIOS. You want to make sure the CD-Rom is set to boot before the hard drive. Here is a guide on how to check the Boot Order in the BIOS.

Once the boot order is set correctly, put your Windows XP disk into your CD-Rom and boot the computer.

A message will come up telling you to “Hit any key to Boot from CD”. Hit any key on the keyboard to start the Windows Setup process.

The computer will go to a black screen that tells you it’s starting the Windows Setup Process.

Now it will switch to a blue screen that has a grey bar at the bottom. In the grey bar you will see the status message “Copying Files”. Let the computer do its thing and it will eventually take you to a new screen.

The new screen will give you 3 options, Setup, Repair and Quit. You will want to hit “Enter” to choose the “Setup” option.

The next screen is the Windows licensing agreement. Click “F8” to agree and move on.

The screen you are at now will show you any partitions that are located on the drive. If you were doing a “Windows Repair” you would do it from this screen using the Repair an Existing Windows Installation option.

How to Do a Windows XP Repair (coming soon…)

The screen will show you any partitions that are located on your computer. If you are using one drive you should only see 1 partition. (In most cases) If you have multiple partitions make sure you are not choosing a secondary drive or partition that has information on it or you may lose data.

You also have the option of creating multiple partitions from this screen by choosing the “C” option.

I recommend using the full partition size for your installation. If you are trying to create multiple partitions this is something I may cover in a future guide entitled:

Creating Multiple Partitions on a Windows XP Installation (coming soon…)

For our purposes we are doing a “Clean Install” of Windows so we will select our partition and hit “Enter” to setup a new Windows installation.

The next screen it takes us to will normally give you a couple options. It will give you the option to create a FAT or NTFS file system for your installation, and it will also give you the option for standard or “Quick”.

NTFS is the recommend file system as FAT has become obsolete for most purposes. NTFS also offers better use of hard drive space, there are no 2+ gb file limitations, and security features that are not present in FAT.

I recommend selecting the option to format your drive using the NTFS file system and choosing the (QUICK) option. This will setup your drive and get you up and running as quickly as possible.

The Windows Setup process will now show you a screen where it is formatting the hard drive, setting up the file system and installing system files. Once this is done the system will reboot and will enter the Graphical portion of the Windows XP Installation process.

Click Here for Part 2 – Windows XP Graphical Installation Setup Process (coming soon…)