How do I reformat my whole HD?

[Jared]

I have been having a few problems with my Dell 8300 and
want to just trash everything and start from scratch. I
want to reformat my whole hard drive. How can I do this?
When I put my XP cd in to reinstall windows, it asked me
where I wanted to install XP. I tried deleting the
partition with the old install on it, but it says I can't
because setup files are copied there. I only have one
partition (80GB) so I can't install on a different one.
Is there some utility that can be put on a bootable
floppy that I can run to reformat? Thanks

 

[Lem]

This seems like an extreme step to take for only "a few problems."
Unless your last install was only a few days ago, you're setting
yourself up for a lot of -- probably unnecessary -- work reinstalling
applications and data (and you have backed up your data, right?)

Formatting the drive seems to be the favorite "solution" offered by
various tech support services that don't want to take the time to figure
out what actually is wrong. It's cheaper for them -- but more
unpleasant for you.

 

[debyteky]

If you can get a Windows 98 startup diskette, you can run
fdisk and delete your partion, format and reload.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

If you can get a Windows 98 startup diskette, you can run
fdisk and delete your partion, format and reload.

There's no need to do that since the XP CD contains all necessary tools,
which can actually work better than the previous ones.

Also, the W98 diskette cannot format to NTFS.

-pk

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

Simply boot from the WinXP installation CD. You'll be offered the
opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part of the
installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the order of boot
devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)

HOW TO Install Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;316941

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

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm


Bruce Chambers

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