formatting a hard drive that has windows xp is not as
simple as it used to be. the best way I have found is to
create a boot disk (regular floppy dis), but not just a
boot disk, a windows 98 boot disk. you can find this on
the internet if you don't have access to a pc with windows
98 installed. boot from the disk, say "yes" to boot with
cd-rom support. use "fdisk" from the c: prompt to erase
all non-dos partitions or create new partitions or
whatever you want to do (easiest thing to do is leave one
active partition). then type "format c: /u". after it's
done, your compute will re-start (make sure to take the
floppy disk out before this). have it re-start from the
windows xp cd (or any other windows you want to install),
and follow the instructions on the screen. When it comes
to selecting the drive to install the windows into,
convert the drive to NTFS, DON'T format it again. NTFS is
necessary for windows xp. After that, it should be a
piece of cake, just follow the directions on the screen
and you should be okay.
