Where have I gone wrong?

[Meadow]

Please forgive the lack of technical terms, but I'm very much an amateur technician. A considerable amount of my expertise is down to pointers from friends and trial and error.

My daughter's partner presented my with an Eee PC 901 which was clogged up with rubbish. I exported the program files into D: and set up a mount from C: However I found that Windows was taking over the miniscule sub 4GB C: drive.

In the end, I chose to reinstall Windows which was a big mistake - too big for the drive. So, of course the drive has been formatted. By chance I happened on this blog. I followed the instructions given and was a bit surprised to find the ISO coming out at over 2.3GB. We included some components that the blogger didn't recommend - a handful of MB worth. We were therefore surprised when the ISO came out at over 2GB. Of course, a set of data that big would only fit on a DVD, not a CD, and Eee netbook just won't recognise a DVD.

The original Windows disc is a Dell Windows XP Pro Media edition.

I can't provide screen shots as I only have the ISO, and have no idea how to view the contents.

Any pointers as to where I've gone wrong would be really appreciated.

Edited December 15, 2009 by Meadow

[submix8c]

Chances are, the 4gb partition was a "restore partition". The CD(s) should be be useable for a "clean install" only (using the cd-key on the PC case). You'll have to activate it (by phone, of course). If you haven't wiped out the "restore partition" and the Partition Boot Record (the "magical boot" for Restore), you should be able to press a Fn (which one I don't know) to do a restore to the C-drive. The CD(s) might even be a Restore Set...

Go to Dell-dot-com and see what they say about the Restore for your PC (search Dell or even look for the ID on the PC)... If it works that way, you won't even have to reactivate,,,

[jaclaz]

Does Dell produce the eeePC (901 or other model)?

@Meadow

The problem is your source.

It is NOT a "good" Windows XP CD, is a "crapified" DELL OEM one.

Besides the fact that it is an infringement of the Eula to use such an OEM OS on another machine, why do you think that this app has been created?:

http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/

Get a valid XP source CD.

jaclaz

[submix8c]

Hmmm... looks like the Asus folks have a restore disk and not a recovery partition...

Oops! spoke too soon -

http://spemi.blogspot.com/2009/09/reinstal...xp-on-asus.html

If true and it works out for you then you might be able to create a legit CD from the restore...

Edited December 17, 2009 by submix8c

[jaclaz]

@submix8

Unless I am mistaken, the OP posted:

• that he has a DELL XP ISO
  
• and the .iso ONLY
  

jaclaz

[submix8c]

I exported the program files into D: and set up a mount from C: However I found that Windows was taking over the miniscule sub 4GB C: drive.

In the end, I chose to reinstall Windows which was a big mistake - too big for the drive. So, of course the drive has been formatted.

Hence the confusion "Where have I gone wrong" (originally XP?). If there is no HDD-Recovery-Partition option, the only choice is to "decrapify" the Dell and replace key files (not to be obtained here). XP CD's can still be obtained from reputable sources...