Formatting problem

[Cast-it Admin]

Hi

I want to start afresh... get rid of all clutter, re-format my C: drive and
do a complete re-install.

The problem is my NTFS C: drive won't let me format it - WHY? there must
be a way????


Ron

 

[LVTravel]

Boot with the XP CD. During the install process it will allow you to format
the hard drive to start fresh.

See here http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;316941 and
scroll down to "Perform a clean install of Windows XP"

 

[Yves Leclerc]

You can not re-format the booting drive (C) while with-in the XP. You must
boot the PC with the XP install CD or the recovery system process.

 

[Cast-it Admin]

Thanks - I knew there was a away, I forgot the XP CD was also a boot-disk!

Ron

 

[Rock]

Hi

I want to start afresh... get rid of all clutter, re-format my C: drive
and do a complete re-install.

The problem is my NTFS C: drive won't let me format it - WHY? there
must be a way????

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

A Google search for install XP would have given you that link as the first
hit.

 

[Paul Johnson]

Hi

I want to start afresh... get rid of all clutter, re-format my C: drive
and do a complete re-install.

The problem is my NTFS C: drive won't let me format it - WHY? there
must be a way????

In any operating system, there is no method to format a mounted filesystem
(or in Windowsese: there is no method to format a disk that's being used
by software currently running).

Reboot to your favorite boot disk and try again. I suggest Knoppix,
mkfs.vfat will create you a vfat (Windowsese: FAT32) filesystem. If you're
adventurous, you can try for mkfs.ntfs but that might not actually work
given how recent read/write NTFS support is in Linux.

Hope this helps.