That’s it. I’ve had it. I’ve done all I can to fix this frigging thing. I’m going to spend some alone time and reinstall everything.
What is the best way (short of buying a new HD) to get everything but the bios deleted from the comp?
It sounds as though you want to use the Fdisk tool, but before you do so, make sure you have either a restore disc, or the OS you wish to reinstall, along with other necessary drivers to support peripherals. Before installing the OS, you’ll need to partition the formatted disk.
Need more information before truly intelligent answers can be offered.
I have the XP disk to reinstall the OS. Any drivers I need outside that are avail for free online. Though I’d have to reconfig my Internet to get back online. Basically the problem is SP2 won’t go away, and I have a feeling that’s the problem with another program I’m trying to run. (The whole DVD burning problem I posted to CS)
Also, I did a system restore to 3 days before I installed SP2, but they’re still all there in the program tree. In addition to that I’m trying to remove Kazaa and iMesh but can’t because I keep getting an error of INSTAL.LOG that doesn’t allow me to remove them.
Before blaming SP2, have you run a scan using Spybot 1.3? Kazaa and other file sharing sites are known for installing malware/spyware on your machine which may interfere with legitimate operations.
The problem I’m having now only started after installing SP2. While the P2P’s were installed, the burner still did was it was asked. Also, I never had a problem uninstalling those P2P’s. Can you see why I’m so damn frustrated? Apparently I can’t remove the SP2 at all, other than a hard install. (I didn’t archive when I downloaded it) :smack:
I do appreciate your help though. If there’s anything else you can think of, please let me know.
If you need to do a clean install, it’s fairly painless with XP, if you’ve got a full install version - the partitioning and formatting of the hard drive is part of the process, and is fairly simple. What I would recommend is downloading SP2 again (on somebody else’s computer) and having it on CD to install before you even go online with the new install.
OK, I’ve run Spybot, AdAware, did another system restore, removed iMesh and all but the install pack of Zazaa that I can’t get rid of.
I have the full disk set from Compaq as well as the stand-alone install disk for XP I bought for the last computer. (Full, not the upgrade.) Nothing is working.
This would be much easier if I can just get the HD to where it was before the factory put anything on it. I went my computer, clicked the C: drive, then file, then format. It says there are other utilities I have to close first, even though everything is either closed or disabled.
Short of just buying a new HD to start over with, what can I do?
IIRC, you can just pop the ol’ XP disk into the HDD, tell your BIOS to boot from CD, and then tell the XP disk “yes i want to format this partition and then install XP on it.”
See you when you’re back up and running 
From this, I presume you’re committed to a new install.
If you’ve got a full legit disc, then you boot from it, and follow instructions. Note that it might say ‘hit any key to boot from CD’ or similar. Do that.
On the other hand, if the Compaq discs are the ones that came with the computer, use them, because they should return it to as it was the day you bought it. Again, booting from CD is almost certainly the way to go.
It’s a slight possibility that your computer isn’t set up to boot from CD - if so, you need to enter the BIOS (normally by hitting DEL in the early stages of booting, but sometimes left-shift or something else, it should briefly tell you on screen), and find an option for ‘boot order’, and make sure CD-Rom has priority over the hard drive.
Yay, all reset, now I gotta figure out how to get all the settings back to where they were, not limited to just how to get the speakers to work again! :eek:
Though it whouldn’t be too bad as it picked up on the internet connection (obviously) right away with no problem. Back later for an update if I don’t screw it up much more. 
To answer your question as asked, …
Go get delpart.exe a low-level disk partitioning tool which came on the Windows NT 3.51 administrators disk.
Once your hard drive is partionless, use Fdisk to created the new partitions, reformat and reinstall.
Got it done, and the software I was having a problem with is running well. Don’t know what the malware was, but gone now. Thanks for the help everyone.