Format C: Drive

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Guest

I am running XP Home Edition. I would like to Format my C drive, erasing
everything and starting all new. Can anyone Tell me how to do the
formatting part??
 
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 the monitor, mouse and keyboard, before installing XP.

NOTE: If you have an internal Zip Drive installed, physically disconnect the
EIDE and power cable to it before proceeding, otherwise your main
hard drive may not be assigned the customary C: drive letter.
After installing Windows XP, you may then reconnect it.

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 all 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. ==> Immediately after installing Windows XP, turn on XP's Firewall.
==> http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.aspx

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

8. 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.

9. If you happen to run into any installation difficulties, use the following resources:

How to Troubleshoot Windows XP Problems During Installation
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;310064

Troubleshooting Windows XP Setup
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_setup.htm

[Courtesy of MS-MVP Kelly Theriot]

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

Be Smart! Protect Your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.aspx

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| I am running XP Home Edition. I would like to Format my C drive, erasing
| everything and starting all new. Can anyone Tell me how to do the
| formatting part??
 
In
Stadly said:
I am running XP Home Edition. I would like to Format my C
drive,
erasing everything and starting all new. Can anyone Tell me
how to
do the formatting part??
Click to expand...


Just boot from the Windows XP CD (change the BIOS boot order if
necessary to accomplish this) and follow the prompts for a clean
installation (delete the existing partition by pressing "D" when
prompted, then create a new one).

You can find detailed instructions here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

or here http://windowsxp.mvps.org/XPClean.htm

or here http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm

However why do you want to reformat and reinstall? In my view,
it's almost always a mistake. With a modicum of care, it should
never be necessary to reinstall Windows (XP or any other
version). I've run Windows 3.0, 3.1, WFWG 3.11, Windows 95,
Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP, each for the period of
time before the next version came out, and each on two machines
here. I never reinstalled any of them, and I have never had
anything more than an occasional minor problem.

It's my belief that this mistaken notion stems from the technical
support people at many of the larger OEMs. Their solution to
almost any problem they don't quickly know the answer to is
"reformat and reinstall." That's the perfect solution for them.
It gets you off the phone quickly, it almost always works, and it
doesn't require them to do any real troubleshooting (a skill that
most of them obviously don't possess in any great degree).

But it leaves you with all the work and all the problems. You
have to restore all your data backups, you have to reinstall all
your programs, you have to reinstall all the Windows and
application updates,you have to locate and install all the needed
drivers for your system, you have to recustomize Windows and all
your apps to work the way you're comfortable with.

Besides all those things being time-consuming and troublesome,
you may have trouble with some of them: can you find all your
application CDs? Can you find all the needed installation codes?
Do you have data backups to restore? Do you even remember all the
customizations and tweaks you may have installed to make
everything work the way you like?

Occasionally there are problems that are so difficult to solve
that Windows should be reinstalled cleanly. But they are few and
far between; reinstallation should not be a substitute for
troubleshooting; it should be a last resort, to be done only
after all other attempts at troubleshooting by a qualified person
have failed.

If you have problems, post them here; it's likely that someone
can help you and a reinstallation won't be required
 
Do you have a retail copy of XP Home and is it the full version or upgrade
version? Or do you have a restore disk that puts Windows on your drive?

If you have XP Home full, follow the instructions offered by Carey and Ken.

If you have XP Home upgrade, you must have a Windows 95, 98, 98SE, or ME cd
to insert when requested by the XP Home upgrade installer. If you do you
still follow the instructions given. If you do not, then don't attempt a
reinstall. The XP Home upgrade installer will stop you. In this case post
back here for further ideas.

If all you have is a restore cd that came with the computer, then all you
can do is run it and it will do any formatting it needs to do. If this is
not acceptible, then you will need to purchase a retail copy of Windows XP
Home full before proceeding.
 
You must first Make a floppy boot disk and then boot your system with that.
then at the command prompt type "format c:"
If your partion is NTFS you must first convert it ti FAT or FAT32 and then ...
To convert your partion use "Partion Magic"
Good Look!
 
Stadly said:
I am running XP Home Edition. I would like to Format my C drive, erasing
everything and starting all new. Can anyone Tell me how to do the
formatting part??
Click to expand...

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
 
reza said:
You must first Make a floppy boot disk and then boot your system with that.
then at the command prompt type "format c:"
Click to expand...


A boot diskette is a thing of the past, as all legitimate WinXP
installation CDs are already bootable.

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
 
Alex said:
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
Click to expand...

This is not correct. If you format your partition there will be nothing left
of previous OS installations. Deleting and recreating partitions will not
make a difference one way or the other.

Technically, if you delete a partition and then create a new one in its
place with the exactly same size, filesystem, cluster size etc, all you do
is actually undoing the delete operation. I.e. you take one step back, and
then one forward. This is totally unnecessary, unless you like to dance.
 
reza said:
You must first Make a floppy boot disk and then boot your system with
that. then at the command prompt type "format c:"
If your partion is NTFS you must first convert it ti FAT or FAT32 and
then ... To convert your partion use "Partion Magic"
Good Look!
Click to expand...

There are other options.
Click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into the address box
if using the web based newsgroup.
Format XP
http://michaelstevenstech.com/format_XP.htm
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm
 
André Gulliksen said:
This is not correct. If you format your partition there will be nothing left
of previous OS installations. Deleting and recreating partitions will not
make a difference one way or the other.
Click to expand...

XP setup if you simply go ahead to a new install in the same partition
is likely *not* to format even though you think it has. Hence the
fairly frequent case where someone does it but finds all Program files
there but not working. Better to take the tiny extra time to make sure
 
reza said:
You must first Make a floppy boot disk and then boot your system with that.
then at the command prompt type "format c:"
If your partion is NTFS you must first convert it ti FAT or FAT32 and then ...
To convert your partion use "Partion Magic"
Click to expand...

You do not need to convert first and go to the expense of Partition
Magic. A Win98 FDISK will delete non-DOS partition.

But you do not need to do any of this at all. 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
 
Alex said:
A Win98 FDISK will delete non-DOS partition.
Click to expand...

Actually, that is not always true. It is probably true in this case, as
fdisk can indeed delete _primary_ non-FAT partitions. But fdisk is useless
if you have to delete _logical_ non-FAT partitions.
 
André Gulliksen said:
Actually, that is not always true. It is probably true in this case, as
fdisk can indeed delete _primary_ non-FAT partitions. But fdisk is useless
if you have to delete _logical_ non-FAT partitions.
Click to expand...

This case is what concerned me - deleting the partition with XP which
will be a primary
 
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