I am trying to format my dell C: drive and rid it of everything. The problem is, Dell doesn’t include a recovery CD process…my computer came with Windows ME and I have purchased Windows XP. I want to format my computer and all its contents and install Windows XP. Windows XP setup doesn’t give the choice to erase the old OS, instead it only gives a choice of installing XP on another partition within the same C: drive.
I would appreciate information on how to format my current C: drive. I believe it is using the DOS prompt commands but I don’t remember how to bring up DOS (before the OS loads)…DOS will only let me format if Windows has not loaded yet.
Also, once I do bring up the pre-windows DOS prompt…I also need the actual commands necessary to successfully format the C: drive. I know this may sound lie dinosaur knowledge to most of you, but I’m hoping someone will remember and can help me out.
Thanks
Until a better answer comes a long I’d just like to let you know that windows XP should give you the option of starting from scratch, i.e. reformatting and repartitioning the drive (with only one NTFS partition, or more than one if you want)
Mine did. If I remember rightly I installed windows by booting from the CD, it formatted my HD and partitioned it as NTFS (on my say-so of course, and after I had backed up all the stuff I wanted to keep)
During the win XP install process, just delete the existing partition, create a new partition, and format it. That will completely erase your hard drive and allow you to start from scratch.
I can not do that because it saids there are setup files on the harddrive that are needed for installation…so thus I can not format if I want to continue to install…
Basically what happened was that I was installling XP…it did the preinstallation stuff and needed me to restart before contiuning to install…I am stuck…I need to know how to do it from DOS mode
To format the C drive from DOS, you just type “FORMAT C:” (without the quotes, of course). This assumes that you are booting from a DOS floppy, or are somehow otherwise booting DOS. If you are at a DOS prompt from windows, it’s smart enough to prevent you from using it to erase itself.
Once you get rid of your C drive, you will need to boot from the XP CD and install. Your computer can boot from the CD Rom drive, and your XP CD is bootable, right? Better to be sure of this before you completely step 1 above.
Note that not all hardware supported by ME is also supported by XP. It’s possible that you may not be able to use XP without changing some bit of hardware. Not likely if you are using a recent brand name like Dell, but possible.
NTFS is supposedly more secure, but I personally don’t think it makes much of a difference. The advantage of FAT32 is that if something really gets whacked, you can boot from a win98 boot floppy and at least access the drive. You can’t access an NTFS partition with most boot floppies.
to the OP:
Engineer_comp_geek said this already, but just for emphasis …
You CAN wipe the hard drive during the XP setup. BUT you’ve got to start it right.
If you boot ME and then use ME to run the setup.exe from the XP CD, then you’re right, it won’t let you reformat the partition because while setup.exe was running under ME it copied a bunch of stuff to the hard drive that it needs. That’s apparently what you did & it won’t work.
You must BOOT from the XP CD. Then the XP pre-setup process will offer to reformat the partition, or as kinoons says, you can force it to do so by deleting the partition that currently holds ME & then creating a partition from all that empty space.
There’s no need to boot from DOS & do a FORMAT C: first. In fact, it’s safer not to.
You may need to fiddle with your BIOS settings to enable booting from the CD. At least it’s easy to figure out if you need to. Put the XP CD in the drive & reboot. If ME starts, your boot-from-CD is disabled; start fiddling. If the XP setup starts, you’re in business.
[QUOTE=LSLGuy]
to the OP:
Engineer_comp_geek said this already, but just for emphasis …
You CAN wipe the hard drive during the XP setup. BUT you’ve got to start it right.
If you boot ME and then use ME to run the setup.exe from the XP CD, then you’re right, it won’t let you reformat the partition because while setup.exe was running under ME it copied a bunch of stuff to the hard drive that it needs. That’s apparently what you did & it won’t work.
QUOTE]
Well the problem is, I did try to run setup while on ME. Now it is not letting me format C: since the necessary install files still exist on C:
Also, whenever I try to load the computer, it still brings up (every single time) two options. One option is to complete the setup (which I don’t want to do since it won’t let me format first) and to continue to ME (which won’t fully load now). MY computer is basically stuck in Pre-OS state.
I want to install XP and format everything on C:
At this point, what can I do?
If you need a boot disk, for any reason, among them, not having a PC that will boot from the CD, try…
It’s got nearly any boot disk you could ever need.
[QUOTE=SoulSearching]
The key, as others have noted, is to boot from the XP disk.
Put the XP disk in the CD drive. Ignore any prompts/windows that come up.
Power down.
Power up.
The machine should boot from the XP disk now.
Hopefully, you should have the option to format then install XP.
Good luck!