Resolved Reformatting a HDD With a Preloaded OS.

A friend of mine has an HP M7250n Media Center PC preloaded. We are trying to format the preloaded part of the drive. Is there a trick to getting the preloaded OS off the drive and then install win 7. We tried to put the win 7 disk in and do a custom install it only gets so far into the installation when we get a message that there are corrupted files that neeed to be removed before intallation can procede.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Firstly I must point out that I don't know a lot about this however as I have a Netbook which came with XP preloaded which then installed automatically when I first turned it on.

I asked an IT expert about this and was told that some brands of laptops/netbooks prevent any other operating system being installed other that the preloaded one.
Also (on my netbook) the preloaded operating system is in a HIDDEN partition.

 

I'm thinking of using Diskpart.

 

I would not do anything until I took a copy (clone) of the partition containing the preloaded operating system otherwise you might end up with an unuable laptop.

 

HP M7250N Media Center Edition Desktop PC.

 

My suggestions are regardless of what type of PC you have, desktop or laptop.

 

I've used that procedure before. I just could not remember it. Then I was reading an article that mentioned Diskpart and bells went off in my head. It's tough getting older.

 

It's better than the alternative though!

 

Yes It Is! Thanks for your help.

 

Diskpart did the trick. Upgraded the memory. Installed Win 7 Ult and the computer is up and running.