Reinstalling Windows without Admin rights

[notreally]

okay, i have a couple of computers my company has given me. or more accurately, they have given me over the years and have forgotten about.

i would like to reinstall windows on the boxes, so i can do more with them. currently they have XP Professional on them. problem is, that because I don't have admin rights, i cannot boot from the XP disc and a simlple c: format give me a access denied.

what are my options. is there something in the bios or something that i can do to override this? btw, there is no floppy drive. only cd rom.

any help would be appreciated.

 

[Ignatius]

There used to be some 'back door' trick for this a couple of years ago, but I think one of the service pack patches has covered it up...

Depending on whether or not you have all of the application software for the machine (as well as a copy of Windows), you could just zero-fill the drive (ie completely wipe it clean) and reinstall Windows and all your apps. It'll be a little time consuming, but you won't have any issues with it going forward, plus any shareware, temp files, and other 'trash' will be gone as well.

If you choose that option, it goes without saying that you should back up all of your personal files, plus (at least) your email (.pst) folder and internet shortcuts...

 

[notreally]

when you say "zero fill the drive", what do you mean? i cannot format it with the usual commands. it tells me i don't have access because the login i have does not have admin rights. i'm totally comfortable formatting, but not sure how that can be accomplished. there HAS to be a way.

 

[Bevo Incognito]

You should be able to boot off of the CD and fdisc the drive. That overwrites everything including the boot sector. Then reestablish a brand new c: partition.

Fdiscking should destroy all existing partitions.

 

[Ignatius]

You can also go to Seagate's site (among other hard drive manufacturers) and download one of their disk utilities which will allow you to wipe the drive clean; theirs is called 'SeaTools'...the X-Files in me doesn't trust fdisk as much (lol), but it'll work just as the previous poster stated....I've been in the same situation where a company laptop 'fell off a truck', and I liked the security of totally scrubbing the disk...

 

[bck031]

During the install, it should give you an option to delete the current partition.