Complete Reformat of XP

Rollo Tamasi

Hi guys. I haven't used XP or Windows for a couple of years so I am a bit rusty on my MS related techy stuff...

I have a PC which I need to format, I want to wipe everything from it. There is a single 80GB HD in the PC and it is partitioned into two drives. There are two installations of XP on the machine. One is on the C: and the other is on F:.The PC automatically boots into the installation on F:.

I have tried various formating options via the administration area within the control panel but each format attempt gives an error of not being able to complete the format. I have ran a fresh installation from the XP CD but each time I do that it just installs a new copy of XP into the F: drive but the C: drive remains intact.

I have gone into the command prompt and ran C: format and F: format but each returns a message about processes and having to unmount the drives. It asks me if I want to do this, I click yes. The drives are unmounted but when I go to format the drives I receive the same error about processes.

I have edited out of the partitions being referenced in the boot.ini file just in case this could have been causing an issue but this doesn't clear the messages about processes when attempting to format via cmd or via the administrative tools.

So, how do I get to a stage where I have a single formated 80GB HD ready for a fresh copy of XP? Any help is much appreciated.

Ghost Train

when you do an xp install with the windows cd, it will give an option to delete old partitions & create partitions and format the disk etc