[Need Help] Cancelling Installation

Operating Systems & Open Source Windows
1

I'm in need of help here.

I've just built my new gaming PC and my friend offered a solution for my OS. He gave me a Windows XP OEM disc with a manual and a Windows 7 Upgrade Disc. Now on installation of Windows XP I realised that the "Certificate of Authenticity" wasn't in the place it should be. As such I can't exit the installation and I'm almost certain that I can't wipe the hard drive from the BIOS. If I attempt to start up the computer then it immediately goes back into the Windows XP setup process. 

Need a solution asap. 

2

If you have another computer that you can plug the hard drive into then you could reformat the drive from there. 

3

I just realized that if you put in a proper install disk then you should be able to install it from there. Which will remove the old stuff.

4

Thanks I got neighbor that has a computer I could use. I'll ask him to reformat it then. 

5

You can do a clean install of Windows 7 from the upgrade disc.  In fact, you'd have to do that anyway after installing Win XP.  Why are you installing XP?

6

Because I assumed you had to install XP before installing the upgrade disc. Even when I put the upgrade disc in it goes to the XP setup. 

7

as long as you boot into the disk you should be given the option to format, if it goes back to where you were in the setup you're probably booting to the hard drive

8

I've made sure to boot to the disk. I'm assuming you're talking about XP here. But even when I do this (going through BIOS, setting the Disk as Boot) I'm still presented with the setup screen. It even does this without me putting the disc in. 

9

try unplugging the hard disk sata cable, then when the cd spins up plug it back in, because if it does the same exact thing whether the disk is in or not it must be booting to the hard drive for some reason

otherwise if you can get either a bootable partition manager (gparted/minitool partition wizard/etc.) or Linux live cd they will be able to format it for sure

10

I would double and triple check your BIOS settings.  If the boot order is properly set with the DVD drive at the top of the list, there's no way you should not get a prompt to enter Win 7 setup.

It even does this without me putting the disc in.

Just to be clear, the Win 7 disc is already in your DVD drive when you turn the computer on, right?  What motherboard are you using?

11

Yep I've double checked everything and it's still doing what I specified. MY neighbor is happy to reformat my hard drive and therefore I'll use him.