Uninstall FreeNAS and revert to Windows

[nickiann]

I installed FreeNAS onto the HDD of an old XP laptop in order to make use of some external hard drives that I had. It's been a complete disaster - too many errors to mention and a complete waste of a week - so I want to give up and re-install Windows. The laptop will no longer boot from the CD drive so how do I go about doing this?
Thanks in advance for any help. (BTW - I'm not a techie so I'd appreciate any answers as an idiots-guide!)

 

[jgreco]

If the laptop's CD drive has failed, you may be able to use an external USB CD drive. One way or another, it basically involves finding a way to cause the laptop to be able to access the Windows recovery disks you have.

 

[nickiann]

Thanks for your reply. I don't think the CD drive has failed, it's just not booting up from it. I'll try to create a USB drive.

 

[nickiann]

Nope. It's set to boot from CD then removable media then HDD. I have both a CD and a USB stick in and it still boots into FreeBSD. Although, it seems to be corrupt because all it says is:
F1 FreeBSD
F2 FreBSD
F5 Drive 1
F6 PXE
Boot: F2 #########
And it just keeps adding ### till the screen fills up :(
If I press any key it stops then does absolutely nothing.