my friend got a virus probably and his windows crashed. he starts it up and then it shuts down. im recalling this from memory but i beleive im pretty correct. i dont think their is a blue screen of death. my question is how can he find out what OS he was using. because he talked to a friend or some tech person and was told he needs to reinstall the OS from the disc. which he doesnt have so he doesnt know which one to buy. also if he has xp home would it mess up the comp if he installed xp pro or vice a versa? sry im new to this not forums but this site if this is the wrong thread sry. also ive been told to watch my grammar and capitalize since i used bad typing like in aim before so im trying to spell stuff right. if you need anymore info ill try to get all i can. and this is a desk top. i dont know the make or model or anything not that it matter since its kinda a virus/software kinda thing. anyway thats all thx for any help.
If he is having major trouble starting his puter and he get the blue window of death. He should just format, if he formats it doesn't matter what he puts on as far as a OS.But he will need a installation disk to put what ever he want s on there. If its 98 SE he will need a floppy and a disk if it windows XP he will just need a disk. If he formats then he will lose everything that is presently on his puter unless he partitioned the hard drive and put what he wants to keep in the other drive
i beleive he has only one hard drive...most likly a 100gig HD seems what people other than me get when buying a comp. but yea, so he would hav to reformat by reinstalling which ever OS he chose? theirs no way to reinstall the OS and keep all the data? but again i think like a case i saw else where it gets the loading screen you know windows xp (home/pro) with that loading bar near the bottom and then shuts down. but he was running xp so he'll need a cd ofcourse.
