Formatting a hard drive with Windows XP

[Binoculars]

I want to format the hard drive on my Dell laptop. I don't have a boot disk, or for that matter a floppy drive. When I use the Reinstall CD there are still things left from the previous installation, so I was advised to delete the partition and create a new one.

At the appropriate page, it showed one FAT partition of 47MB, the C: Drive of 30odd GB, and unpartitioned space of 8MB, so I select the C drive then D for delete, but I am then told I can't delete that partition because it contains temporary setup files without which the installation can't continue. :confused: :confused: I don't WANT the installation to continue, I want to wipe the drive and start again, but that option is not made available to me.

Any suggestions?

[E-Liam]

Hi Binos,

http://www.cyberwalker.net/faqs/reinstall-reformat-winxp/reformat-FAT32-XP.html

That should help.

Cheers

Liam

[5milesbaby]

From what I remember when I did a full re-format before install the question read something like:

"this action may delete files needed by Windows to continue installation. Are you sure you wish to continue?"

Click yes and keep clicking yes until the format starts (gives about 3 warnings from what I remember) as you are doing a full format then full re-install and the files that are going to be deleted should be on the installation disk anyhow to be reinstalled when you get that far. It wasn't obvious to go down the route I eventually did, but when you get there you know you are where you want to be. I know how annoying all those different Users are, and you can't even access thier files, grrrrrrrrr!!!

PS I had a few extras to load on ie. soundcard data, graphics card data etc and it took around 6 hours from start to finish, hope you've got a good movie or two in the backgound :zzz:

[Binoculars]

5milesbaby, I don't get that option, it just says flat out I can't delete it.

Liam, that link specifies a FAT32 formatted hard drive. When my drives are listed, the FAT drive is the -: of 47MB. The C: drive is shown as NTFS. Does that make a difference or can I still follow that link?

[Toxteth O'Grady]

If you don't have a floppy use this (http://www.bootdisk.com/popfiles.htm). You'll be able to boot from the CD-ROM and format your hard disk in DOS.

From the README:

The file you will download will be a zipped .iso image file of the
bootable Disk. Unzip the file, then use a burning program which can
burn images including .iso's such as Nero. When booting from the CD
the Boot Files will be seen as Drive A: and the Utlilties will be
seen as Drive R:

The utilities are separated from the boot files so you can use them in
Windows without booting from the CD.


Before using this disk make sure you set your BIOS to boot from the CD
drive first, and make sure the channel it's on is set to AUTO. Also note
that the CD drive you want to boot from often likes to be set as a
Master Drive.

You may be thinking why use this CD when the Windows CD is bootable?

Well, two main reasons. This disk has the tools you need to totally
clean your hard drive of EVERYTHING. Secondly, it allows you to to
install XP from your hard drive which has some advantages prior to, and
during the install and also, later on after XP is running.

Other reasons include being able to run a full scandisk on your hard
drive before you use it again to see if there are any bad sectors that
need to be marked bad.

The bootable CD boots to a menu where you can choose one of the four
universal CDrom drivers. This is necessary to read and use other cdrom
disks after booting up with this disk.

It includes the utilities you may need to bring your hard drive back to
a factory fresh state to help guarantee a successful Windows installation.

Once you've booted from the CD you made you can now setup your
hard drive [fdisk, format, zero fill, wipe out all partitions etc.] and
properly prepare it for a 100% fresh install on a squeaky clean disk.

[Binoculars]

Thank you, T O'G, that should be more than enough information to get myself in way over my head.

Have just had a thought though; Is the "reinstallation" disc that comes with Dell laptops a full copy of Windows XP designed to be installed from scratch, I wonder? Perhaps the good folk at Dell think their buyers are ignorami who shouldn't be encouraged to fart around with their machines. Prolly not far wrong in this case. :uhoh:

[E-Liam]

Hi Binos,

This is just for info, as I know Toxteth has already seen you right..

http://www.cyberwalker.net/faqs/reinstall-reformat-winxp/reformat-NTFS-XP.html

It may have had something to do with you only mentioning the FAT partition... :D:D :ok:

Cheers

Liam