Change Operating System

I have 2 Compaq Deskpro's, 233mhz, one with Win NT and the other Win 2000. I received these through a bankruptcy and do not have access to the administrator passwords required for access upon boot-up. Can I simply FDisk and re-format these machines or should something be done prior?

 

Formatting is definately the answer in this case. FDISK may or may not work depending on the type of file system (typically NTFS). However, if you have the WIN2K CD, you be able to just boot from the CD (assuming the BIOS supports this) and format from the installation interface. This will also clear up any QWERKS you may have in the current system and make everything new and clean. Let me know what happens.

swb

 

Thanks. I don't have a win2k cd and was planning on re-formating with win98. I did try doing fdisk and format/install win98 on one of the machines and now am having problems booting up.

How bad did I screw things up? Any suggestions/ideas as to what happened?

Thanks in advance!

 

If you don't have the WINK2K CD, how did you install it before? Did someone else put it on? If so, see if you can get a copy of the CD from that person. Also, make some WIN2K boot disks. They're very handy in the event that you can't boot to a CD ROM. Also, if you can avoid putting 98 back on, do so because WIN2K is a much better OS.

 

I received these pc's from a liquidation sale and came as they were, without the os or passwords. Since I can't boot up w/o the password, I was thinking of re-formating with win98, as I have this. I tried one machine but am having boot problems, where it won't boot up after fdisk, format and install.

Suggestions?

 

Try doing an fdisk /mbr.
Reboot,
Run a regular fdisk
Reboot and then run the format.

 

Hai,
You will not be able to fdisk/Format the partitions(NTFS) using Win98/Me Startup disks.(They are created by Win2K/XP).If you have any Win95/DOS disks try them, if you fail you can use Seagate's DM Software to reformat your HD.
Bye.

 

If you continue to have problems you can go to www.bootdisk.com, from here you will be able to d/load partion s/w. This will help in scrubbing your disk formating it and allowing you to load what ever O/S you want !!!

Hope this helps !