System will not format hard drive

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Guest

I know that there has been a lot of recent posts on this, but none of the instructions seem to be working.

I am trying to reformat my hard drive and re-install XP Pro. I have my bios set up to boot from my CD. I select the Windows XP Professional Setup option.

If I select R for Repair, the system finds my existing system partition (NTFS) and gives me a warning message that an existing operating system is in the partition.

I try to Delete the partition, and I receive a message that I cannot delete it because there are system files necessary.

I tried installing over the existing partition, and thought I was sucessful. However, when I viewed the properties of my C: drive, all of the "old" files were still in evidence. I have an 80 gig hard drive and the drive showed 43 gig used. Right where I started from.

I have gone to the C: prompt and typed FORMAT C: \FS:ntfs several times. The prompt immediately appears and all the files are still in place. I have typed this command from the C:\windows prompt also.

Can someone please explain to me (in very simple non-technical English) why this is not working or what I need to do it? I have read every post regarding formating, viewed the FAQs and the links to no avail.

Thank you very much in advance for your assistance.
 
Hi

See if the following links help you:

"How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install"
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

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

--

Will Denny
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups


| I know that there has been a lot of recent posts on this, but none of the
instructions seem to be working.
|
| I am trying to reformat my hard drive and re-install XP Pro. I have my
bios set up to boot from my CD. I select the Windows XP Professional Setup
option.
|
| If I select R for Repair, the system finds my existing system partition
(NTFS) and gives me a warning message that an existing operating system is
in the partition.
|
| I try to Delete the partition, and I receive a message that I cannot
delete it because there are system files necessary.
|
| I tried installing over the existing partition, and thought I was
sucessful. However, when I viewed the properties of my C: drive, all of the
"old" files were still in evidence. I have an 80 gig hard drive and the
drive showed 43 gig used. Right where I started from.
|
| I have gone to the C: prompt and typed FORMAT C: \FS:ntfs several times.
The prompt immediately appears and all the files are still in place. I have
typed this command from the C:\windows prompt also.
|
| Can someone please explain to me (in very simple non-technical English)
why this is not working or what I need to do it? I have read every post
regarding formating, viewed the FAQs and the links to no avail.
|
| Thank you very much in advance for your assistance.
 
Natalie said:
I tried installing over the existing partition, and thought I was
Click to expand...
sucessful. However, when I viewed the properties of my C: drive, all of the
"old" files were still in evidence. I have an 80 gig hard drive and the
drive showed 43 gig used. Right where I started from.

Natalie,
What brand of hard drive do you have?
( Just a query see my post "Overlay causes instability")
I had a heck of a time trying to get the new
HD partitioned,formatted and recognized by XP-Home.
Don't think I have the problem solved yet, good luck with yours.
Xeno
 
Why are you selecting the "Repair" option? If you want to format and
do a clean install, you should select the "Install" option. Then the
install process will ask you if you want to create partitions, format,
etc.

hawk
 
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