Donald DeWitt wrote:
> *I have a four year old Dell desktop that was factory equipped with XP Home
> addition. Some time ago I had upgraded to XP Professional. Now I intend to
> give the computer to my grand daughter and I'd like to format the hard 
> drive
> and reinstall the original operating system for her. However when I place
> the original CD in the drive and click on the reinstall option, I get a 
> "can
> not do" response. Something about cannot downgrade to XP Home. *
> 
> *Is there a way around this installation problem?*
>  Donald DeWitt
> 

Assuming that you don't want any of the data that was on the drive 
already, there are a few options.  Most require the ability to create a 
bootable CD.

1) DBaN the drive (Derik's Boot and Nuke) which will completely 
obliterate any data that was on the drive.  Windows XP Home will then 
see the system as a blank drive.  The downside is that you might lose 
any hidden volumes that Dell placed on the drive.

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

(If you create a DBaN CD, keep it under lock and key and well away from 
any curious users.  It won't wipe your disks as soon as you boot, but 
it's only a few short keystrokes to get to that point.)

You can also simply wipe out the partition table using the fdisk command 
on a Knoppix or Ubuntu LiveCD.  WinXP Home would then see the drive as 
being blank.

2) The original Dell CDs might have come with an option to reset the 
system back to factory defaults?

OTOH, why not give her WinXP Professional as-is?  I don't remember if 
the upgrade version will let you install over an existing version and 
still offer you the change to format.

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