In this tutorial, I will take you through the steps involved with performing a clean installation of the Windows XP Operating System. This consists of partitioning and formatting your hard drive. For this procedure, you will need your Windows XP CD.

<>Partitioning the hard drive:

1. Insert your Windows XP CD in to your CD-ROM drive.
2. Once the Welcome to Setup page loads, press Enter on your keyboard to continue with Setup.
3. Press F8 to accept the Licensing Agreement.
4. You will now be prompted to repair the current Windows XP installation. Since this tutorial teaches the clean installation method, press the ESC key on your keyboard to continue the clean installation.
5. You will now see a list of all of the partitioned and unpartitioned space within each of your hard disks installed. Your options here are as follows:

<>Create a new partition:
To create a new partition, use your arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate to where you would like the new partition created. Then, press the C key on your keyboard to create a new partition in unpartitioned space. Keep in mind, you cannot create a partition within an existing partition, you must first delete the partition and then create new ones.

When creating a new partition, you will be required to let Windows know what size you would like this partition to be. Using your keyboard, type in the size, in megabytes (MB) then press Enter.

Note: If you do not wish to partition your hard drive and would like Windows to create for you a large partition using all available space, just press Enter on your keyboard.

<>Delete an existing partition:
Simply press the D key on your keyboard to delete an existing partition. If you have chosen to delete an existing partition, you will be required to confirm this by pressing the L key on your keyboard.

Note: If it is a System partition that you are trying to delete, press Enter and then the L key to confirm your selection.

Repeat the above process to create or remove partitions until 100 percent of the space is allocated.

Once you have all of your partitions set, you will need to navigate, using the arrows on your keyboard, to the partition where you would like to install Windows XP. Press Enter to continue.

Note: Be sure that your partition selection has sufficient space allocated for the Windows XP installation. I recommend installing Windows XP on a partition that is no smaller than 4 GB.

Now that all of your partitions are set, you will need to format your hard drive.

<>Formatting the Hard Drive:
Using the arrow keys to navigate, select the partition where Windows XP is to be installed. Now, select the NTFS option and press Enter.

You will now be given the options to use the Quick Format or Full Format. Press Enter once you've made your selection.

Quick Format:
By using this option, files are removed from the hard drive just as with the Full Format option. However, the sectors are not scanned for errors. Usually, when this option is used, you must have previously scanned this hard disk and know it not to have any bad sectors.

Full Format:
This is the option that should be used if your hard drive has not been previously scanned for errors. All files will be removed.

Note: If you should choose the Quick Format option, you can always use the chkdsk /r command at the command prompt after the Windows XP installation is complete.

Setup will now show a progress bar and reboot your system once the files have been successfully copied.

Follow the onscreen prompts to personalize your Windows XP installation.

Warning: Be sure to visit Windows Update after the installation is complete. Also, be sure to protect your installation by installing a good anti-virus and firewall program prior to going online with your new Windows XP installation.

Enjoy your new installation!