My wife accidentally compressed her boot files while trying to make some room on her hard drive and lost the ability to boot all. I downloaded and HP mini image direct from HP, but now the netbook is running linux as the operating system. She really wants Windows XP back, but I not entirely sure of what I need. I can get Windows XP boot CDs from HP, which is what I think I need, but I thought I would double check here before paying to get the discs.
If you can set the bios to boot from cd then try downloading 'Hirens boot disk' and burn the files to a cd. Boot the HP using the cd and select Dos Programs from the menu. Go through the selections to get to plain DOS. select the c drive [c:\] and type:compact It should come back with some information about the drive. Now type:compact /u /a c:\*.* It should uncompress the whole c drive.
If the first one doesn't work...... You also have the option on Hiren's disk of selecting 'Mini Windows XP'. When that installs, double click on My Computer and look at the C drive properties. If the 'Compress drive ..' box is checked - uncheck and let it decompress everything on the drive (about one minute per GB). Note that it might not be the C drive - look for the largest drive that is compressed (the 'C' drive may just be a small partition that is used for the Tiny XP)
