New OS on Acer 3003LMi

[VBdynamic]

If you've got the drive space, the easiest thing to do would be to make another partition and intall xp pro on it.

[dglienna]

On the new Dell's you can press F12 to run system restore in the POST screen, that runs it before Windows boots up. If that's the case with you, then you should be able to delete everything in the Windows partition, and still be able to do a restore.

You could upgrade to XP Pro, and run it. If you did a restore, (after erasing that partition) you should be able to reload XP Home.

Keep in mind that some computers (like HP) tatoo the hard drive with a serial number. If that number gets erased, the restore diskettes won't run. (there is a copy of the number in the restore disks on HP's though)

You could always order restore diskettes from the mfg to restore it. If that's the case, then you could format the drive and install XP Pro to reclaim the disk space, but you'd lose your installed apps. Upgrading seems to be the best idea, but be prepared to have to order CD's, and ask for help getting the tatoo back on it (if it has one)