Re formating the harddrive with XP

[Clifford]

I am wanting to reformat the harddrive with XP Home. How
do I get to the DOS prompt?

 

[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 for you mouse and keyboard, before installing XP.

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

7. 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.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

 

[RB]

-----Original Message-----
I am wanting to reformat the harddrive with XP Home. How
do I get to the DOS prompt?
.

Click Start - then up to DOS on the menu.
At the DOS menu type in: cd\ at the end of the line. You
should see C:\
Type format C:
Enter
Follow onscreen guidelines.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I am wanting to reformat the harddrive with XP Home. How
do I get to the DOS prompt?

You don't. There is no true DOS. You do it as part of a reinstall of
the system after booting the XP CD direct. Enter Setup, and after the
license agreement take New Install. When it asks you to confirm where,
hit ESC; select and delete the current partition and make a new RAW one
to be formatted at the next stage

The important point is the delete. Without that it will just go ahead
and make a new install over the top of the old one

If you want to remove XP entirely in order to install something else,
best is to format as part of that; but you can follow the procedure
above and abandon it as soon as the format is complete

 

[Harry Ohrn]

This reply is for Clifford.

If you want to reformat you can use the Recovery Console. Boot your computer
with the XP CD and at the first screen select the option to Repair using the
Recovery Console press "r". If you see the License Agreement you've gone too
far. When the Recovery Console is run it will give you a list of "DOS-like"
commands. One of those is FORMAT. To format a partition do one of the
following depending on whether you want to format as NTFS or FAT32.
Substitute your partition letter for "X"

FORMAT X: /FS:NTFS
or
FORMAT X: /FS:FAT32

when the format is finished type EXIT and press Enter to restart your
computer.

Information on using the Recovery Console can be found here
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm

 

[Please reply to news group.]

How could you do that? Windows shouldn't allow you to reformat from
within Windows!