Formatting C: drive

[Nikk]

I am attempting to format C: drive to give PC a new lease
of life but keep getting message.

"Cannot format as volume is
in use by another process. Format may run if this volume
is dismounted first. All opened handles to this volume
would then be invalid"

It gives me the Y?N option to force a dismount but still
does not allow me saying

"Cannot lock the drive. The volume is still in use"

Can anyone help me as PC creeking

 

[Dave Routh]

Hi
You need to have your bios set to boot from CD then put your XP cd in,
restart and follow instructions, if you cannot boot from CD you need to
download the 6 floppies and boot from them then run your CD to install.
Dave

 

[Jetro]

You cannot format the partition on which Windows resides from within
Windows. You can delete, recreate, and format as FAT32 any primary partition
using W98 diskette (www.bootdisk.com). To format a partition as NTFS before
actual setup you have to either boot into mini-Windows XP/2000/NT as Dave
mentioned or put the HDD into another computer with NT OS or use 3rd-party
utilities such as Partition Magic, Volume Manager (both www.powerquest.com),
PartitionExpert (www.acronis.com), or Partition Manager and Hard Disk
Manager (both www.paragon-gmbh.com).