Hard Drive Formatting and Windows Installation
Insert the disk labeled “Windows XP Home Edition” into the optical drive and press “Enter.” After a blank screen, Windows informs us that it’s now loading files and beginning to set itself up on the computer. It will need our help often along the way.
The first screen on which it comes to a halt is asking what we want to do. It informs us that we need to press “Enter” to set up Windows XP now, so let’s begin the setup process by pressing “Enter.”
It now asks us where we would like to install Windows. In order to put files on the hard drive, we need to first partition it. We need to press “C” to create a partition in the unpartitioned space. If you would like more than one partition on your hard drive, this is the easiest place to that. For this tutorial, we will only be using one hard drive partition. Press “Enter” to accept the maximum partition size.
Setup has created a new partition and labeled it “C:.” Let’s press “Enter” to set up Windows on this partition. Now it let’s us know that this partition is unformatted and needs to be before we can install Windows onto it. Press the up-arrow to select the Quick NTFS partition, and press “Enter” to accept it.
Setup quick-formats the drive in just a few seconds and proceeds to copy the necessary setup files onto the drive. Now we begin our game called “hurry-up-and-wait.” Setup finishes copying files and lets you know it will be rebooting. It comes back up to the windows setup screen and proceeds to install the operating system. No interaction with the computer is needed until the first dialogue box appears.
It’s ready for us to fill out some basic information about the computer. Press “Enter” to continue. In the next box, we are asked to fill in our name and organization. This is tied in to the operating system, but can be changed later if need be. Fill it out and press next. Feel free to leave the organization box blank.
The next box asks us to input the Product Key. It’s located in the same packaging as the Windows CD and is printed on a small label on the outside. When you’re done entering the key, press enter. If you receive an error, double-check your entry box by box. It’s very common to make a typing mistake with character codes like these. The next box wants us to name the computer. Aww, how cute, it’s like a pet. This name can also be changed later. Click “next” when you’re ready to continue. The next box wants us to verify the date and time. It’s reading this information from the BIOS time we set earlier. If it’s not correct, change it, but as usual, it can always be adjusted later.
Windows continues the installation process, but soon enough it wants to know our networking settings. Typical settings will be fine for now. If this computer will be part of a network, we can set it up later, using the network connection wizard. Windows continues to install as we watch the minutes-until-completion creep down. When the setup is finished, the computer restarts itself and begins loading Windows.
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