Help changing operating system?

Hello, I'm havin' some trouble, I've got an old-ish laptop runnin' windows xp. I've got a copy of 'tiny xp' that I want to install instead. My problem is that I can't seem to format the hard drive. How do I go about it, I mean i know you can go into windows explorer and format it that way, but it refuses to work and I can't figure out why(probably because its runnin at the time!LOL!) Any ideas?!?!?Help changing operating system?
I'm thinking that in fact a re-install of XP would be better than TinyXP



In most cases, tinyxp isnt all that great to actually use. Fine to boot from, load now and again so that for example you can format your c: drive when it is not being used (why you cant format it, yes)



You'll find the majority of actually useful things are missing, namely networking is often not included, making the OS useless in most cases.



I ran it for a while but got annoyed that I'd have to hack it even more to get things such as MS office to even install, among a million other little things.



Just a fresh install will probably speed it up a lot especially if it's really old,



Whichever you put on, you need it on CD; can't install XP from a hard drive unless over a network on a prepared computer and prepared install made with sysprep.



As above, make sure your BIOS is set to boot from CD before the hard drive else it won't notice that it has a bootable CD



Also note that anything on it will be wiped.....



When in windows setup, rather than bothering to wait for a full format, just delete the existing partition and create a new one, done instantly rather than waiting (old data is there but has no map to it...can be recovered but will just get overwritten over time as you install windows and other junk) You can still recover things even when they have been fully formatted so it's just a quickie shortcut :)Help changing operating system?
boot off teh CD/DVD or the floppy disk, then format C:



and youre correct, it cannot alter or modify files while theyre open...



and BEWARE... if you format youll aslo need the motherboard drivers, or youll have no network, or sound...Help changing operating system?
Try with Windows bootable cd, like when you install a new os eg XP, you got an option to format your drive. I did this way many times, n i hope it wil work with you too.

Thanks!Help changing operating system?
first make sure that you have set your BIOS to boot from the cd drive first!



to do this you press DEL, F2 or F10 depending on your laptop at the beginning of the booting sequence. after the BIOS are set, insert the cd on your drive, boot the pc and when you see on the screen %26quot;Press any key to boot from cd:....%26quot; press any key..



follow the instructions!Help changing operating system?
the best way i know is to download partition management tool like Acronis Disk Director Suite and make a rescue CD that is bootable .



you can download it from here :

http://www.acronis.eu/homecomputing/down



also you can just insert the windows CD and open the computer .. boot from the CD .. pretend that you are gonna install the new system on the same partition the old system is on .. until the setup asks you if you want to format the installation partition ... do it :)



Good Luck !