Help

[nobody]

Hey everyone, I have, yet again, tried to reformat my computer. Which has done absolutely nothing. Does anyone know how to completely remove EVERYTHING from the computer while I reformat? It doesn't do it at all. I tried to delete my main partition during the install but I couldn't delete it because there was "set up" information on that partition. So I still am not able to use more than 30 gigs of my hard drive and all of the messed up stuff is still messed up. If anyone has any ideas, I'm begging you. Please help.

[Coppertop]

a magnet maybe? everything else seems to have failed.

[kirupa]

Are you trying to reformat via the "DOS" mode of Windows XP, or did you insert the Windows XP CD from your OS and clicked on the Format button via the Window that appeared?

[dropkick]

you should be able to use fdisk to delete a partition then make a new one...I'll post a link to a good step by step article if I can remember where it is...look on google for how to do a clean install or how to use fdisk.

edit:
found a link that should help
how to use the fdisk tool (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/q255/8/67.asp&NoWebContent=1)

[nobody]

kirupa - I used the disk. *sigh*
dropkick - no clue what an fdisk is but I'll look into it. Thanks

[dropkick]

i put the link in my original post...I am assuming you are using windows...

[nobody]

hey thanks dropkick, ill check this out

[Niann]

Go find someone that had an older win OS, 98 works well. Have them create a boot disk for you and use the fdisk utility on the disk to destroy all partitions on the HDD. Then reinstall XP and tell it to use the entire drive. =)

Cheers!
-Niann

[teet]

yeah...get a windows 98 boot disk..boot up computer with it in

when the a:\ prompt comes up type "fdisk"

just hit yes to whatever comes up and then there should be an option to "delete partition" delete everything! including the nondos partition...there should also be an option to "view partitions"...go into that and make sure all the partitions have been deleted.

then reboot and enter into fdisk again...just hit 1 OR yes to EVERYTHING that comes up...then reboot again stick in your windows cd and you should be good to go. if you need any more explanation let me know.

-teet

[Makaveli]

boot disks can be downloaded for free from here
http://www.drd.dyndns.org/index2.html , just go to boot disks section :P

good luck formatting

[nobody]

Cool I'll check out this boot disk thing tonight too. Thanks guys. =)

[nobody]

OK guys, I downloaded the Win98 Boot disk thing and put in on my floppy disk and then restarted all I keep getting a disk error thing. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong but if anyone has any clues as to what to do, puhlesh help ma.

[Niann]

If you are getting a non system disk or disk error you didn't get the right disk, of forgot to kake the disk bootable.

Cheers!
-Niann

[nobody]

7 hours of fighting of with my computer and I finally got it done!