Formatting harddrive

[Guest]

how can I format the harddrive that I have windows xp installed on? I want
to start fresh because of so many prolems occuring.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

The Windows XP CD is bootable and contains all the tools necessary
to partition and format your drive. Follow this procedure and allow
Windows XP to partition and format your drive:

NOTE: It would be best to physically disconnect all your peripheral hardware
devices, except the monitor, mouse and keyboard, before installing XP.

NOTE: If you have an internal Zip Drive installed, physically disconnect the
EIDE and power cable to it before proceeding, otherwise your main
hard drive may not be assigned the customary C: drive letter.
After installing Windows XP, you may then reconnect it.

1. Open your BIOS and set your "CD Drive as the first bootable device".

===> Accessing Motherboard BIOS
===> http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

2. Insert your Windows XP CD in the CD Drive and reboot your computer.
3. You'll see a message to boot to the CD....follow the instructions.
4. The setup menu will appear and you should elect to delete all the existing
Windows partitions, then create a new partition, then format the primary
partition (preferably NTFS) and proceed to install Windows XP.

5. Clean Install Windows XP
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

[Courtesy of Michael Stevens, MS-MVP]

6. ==> Immediately after installing Windows XP, turn on XP's Firewall.
==> http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.mspx

7. After Windows XP is installed, visit the Windows Update website
and download the available "Critical Updates".

8. After installing the critical updates, be sure and visit the support website
of the manufacturer of the computer to download and install any
available Windows XP compatible drivers, such as video adapter
and audio drivers.

9. If you happen to run into any installation difficulties, use the following resources:

How to Troubleshoot Windows XP Problems During Installation
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;310064

Troubleshooting Windows XP Setup
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_setup.htm

[Courtesy of MS-MVP Kelly Theriot]

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

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:

| how can I format the harddrive that I have windows xp installed on? I want
| to start fresh because of so many prolems occuring.

 

[Nog]

how can I format the harddrive that I have windows xp installed on? I
want
to start fresh because of so many prolems occuring.

If you don't have a Windows XP install CD, get a Windows ME startup floppy
and boot it. Run fdisk and remove all dos and non-dos partitions, create one
large primary partition, reboot and run format to format the drive.

 

[Anna]

If you don't have a Windows XP install CD, get a Windows ME startup floppy
and boot it. Run fdisk and remove all dos and non-dos partitions, create
one large primary partition, reboot and run format to format the drive.

idhbige:
It goes without saying that you have an XP installation CD does it not? How
else would you be able to install XP on a newly-formatted HD?

While you could format your drive along the lines described by Nog, there is
certainly no need to do so. You can use your XP installation CD to delete
the existing partition(s), format the drive, and do a fresh install of XP.
There's nothing exotic about this process. If you don't know how to do this,
just do a Google search on "installing XP" and you'll be directed to a
number of sites that have step-by-step instructions for making a fresh
install of XP.

You do understand that when you make a fresh install of XP all your existing
programs & data on that drive will be permanently deleted, right? So if
there's any data that you need from that drive, copy it to some removable
media before you undertake the installation process.
Anna