Please Help

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Hutchison
  • Start date Start date
J

John Hutchison

I have an e-machines p.c that somehow has 2 operating systems on it.

1 is xp home and the other is pro.

The problem is, i want to format the hard drive but can't because it's NTFS,
and for some reason i can't boot from cd rom drive.

Could anyone help please.

Thanks
 
You can use Gparted (www.gparted.sourceforge.net)

Download the ISO from the site, burn it to a CD.

Then boot the computer from the GParted CD.

It works like Partition Magic, but it is free and much more powerful.

If you need any help, do let me know.

PM
 
Hi, to be able to boot fro the CD-Dive I had to change the boot order
settings in the BIOS. I just set CD-Dive before the Hard disk. It worked for
me so hopefully it will for you.
 
John Hutchison said:
I have an e-machines p.c that somehow has 2 operating systems on it.

1 is xp home and the other is pro.

The problem is, i want to format the hard drive but can't because it's NTFS,
and for some reason i can't boot from cd rom drive.

Could anyone help please.

Thanks
Click to expand...

You need to report exactly what you do to boot from the
CD drive and what happens when you try. And by the
way, a descriptive Subject line goes a long way towards
attracting the attention of those who might have a solution
for your problem.
 
John Hutchison laid this down on his screen :
I have an e-machines p.c that somehow has 2 operating systems on it.
Click to expand...
1 is xp home and the other is pro.
Click to expand...
The problem is, i want to format the hard drive but can't because it's NTFS,
and for some reason i can't boot from cd rom drive.
Click to expand...
Could anyone help please.
Click to expand...
Thanks
Click to expand...

if you cannot boot from CD I would certainly not format the HDD
this will leave you with nothing

a few things can cause this
-either the BIOS is set to boot from HDD first before any optical drive
just change the boot order to floppy first, then CDROM and finally HDD
-or the media you have got is non-bootable, then you will need a setup
floppy to boot
-your optical drive doesn't support boot media, very unlikely but with
older optical drives this is a possibility

check this first before you do anything else

then when you are able to start up from CD you can go ahead

grtz
 
John said:
I have an e-machines p.c that somehow has 2 operating systems on it.

1 is xp home and the other is pro.

The problem is, i want to format the hard drive but can't because it's NTFS,
and for some reason i can't boot from cd rom drive.

Could anyone help please.

Thanks
Click to expand...
Here is a more appropriate link for Gparted Live. Gparted is a live CD
Linux distro that can manage your partitions as well as PartitionMagic
but it is free ^ ^. I have used it and liked it very much
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
 
John said:
I have an e-machines p.c that somehow has 2 operating systems on it.

1 is xp home and the other is pro.

The problem is, i want to format the hard drive but can't because
it's NTFS, and for some reason i can't boot from cd rom drive.
Click to expand...


Have you set the BIOS boot order to be CD first?
 
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