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Help with Knoppix

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by mentor976

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I'm running Knoppix on Dell Latitude D820.Dell did not ship the DSR system on the Latitude model. My hard drive is fine and all the files are there. My goal is to reformat the hard drive to install a fresh XP2. If I wipe out the whole hard drive will I have an issue installing XP2 from a retail CD. I don't have the recovery CD.

Thanks.

11 replies

by jiminpa

That's not really a question about Knoppix. ;-)
You should be fine loading from a retail CD. You may have to do a bit of manual labor hunting down the proper drivers but you should be fine.

by mentor976

Your saying it's ok to wipe out the hard drive? Maybe with the tool "KillDisk"

by jiminpa

You can just reload over top. Did something happen to you current version that caused you to decide to run Knoppix? If you currently have XP SP2 loaded and it is corrupt you may be able to use the repair console to "fix" it. Even if you want to load fresh you wouldn't need a thrid party tool, the setup utility will wipe the partition for you. Do you have access to another computer that has internet in case you would need to download a third party driver to get setup to recognize you hard drive?

by robo_dev

You never really learn how something works until it breaks.

I'm pretty sure the Windows XP install program will be able to figure out the Dell partition goofiness and work properly, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.

by mentor976

I got this PC from brother in-law.My goal was to reformat it and have a fresh windows XP2 on it. I don't have the recovery CD. When I got the PC I tried to install XP2 the setup would start just fine then the pc would reboot then the error would say a "disk error occured". Then i messed up with boot.ini but I got that fix,now the error says Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file." I've tried to load the hal.dll but same message again.
This is why I want to reformat the whole hard drive.
Thanks

by jiminpa

You should be able to do it. Based on what you are telling me I don't forsee any problems with what you are trying to do.

Good luck.

by Former member

If you want to preserve the info in the linux partitions then use Knoppix Qparted in System Tool to delete the other partitions.

If you want to departion the entire HD, then because the disk was probably partitioned with Linux you should use a live CD of any flavor and go to the root account (su), unmount the disk(umount /mnt/whatever) then call fdisk (fdisk /dev/whatever device ie. fdisk /dev/hda) and departition from there.

You should then be abe to boot a Windows install CD and complete a fresh install.

by mentor976

I used su to departition the HD. When I start to load windows the blue screen shows pci.sys - Address F748E0BF base at F7487000, DateSteamp 3d7d855c. And i'm not able to finish installing Windows. What do I need to do with Knoppix inorder to fix this issue. To install windows xp2.

by robo_dev

You might try going into BIOS and setting 'plug and play Bios' to OTHER, but the issue is probably that XP is not detecting/installing PCI drivers correctly.

The latest Bios for your PC is A07, dated 6/26/07

Is your XP disk SP1 or SP2? The problem may require you to "slipstream" SP2 to you SP1 CD. See this link with somebody with same problem:

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/t1141540703

by mentor976

I can't update Bios since I'm not able to start windows. I'm only able to run Knoppix. I've also run the "Active boot disk Utilities" to wipe out HD.What would be the best way to fix this issue. Also if i insert XP2 it doesn't do anything. But XP Pro does start to load windowes then I get the error. I didn't get any help from the web.

Thanks.

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