I have a bootable floppy that puts me in the A:\ drive

Here's the prompt I get:

A:\>

Would someone who knows a little about DOS please walk me through this
"clean delete" process, please. Once I get to the CD-ROM (E:\) drive part, I
understand it from the reinstall disk part. But, getting there is my
problem. Do I type "reformat" (without the quotes)?

Why are you trying this via DOS???

Boot to the install cd and it will ask if you want to do a format with your
install.
To do this you will have to enter your bios and specify your boot device ie
cd.

"Swampy" wrote:

Swampy wrote:
As "sgopus" told you, this is not the way to install XP. Here are links
to show you how and what you will need to have on hand:

http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install How-To
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/...alling_Windows -
What you will need on-hand


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

Tangent: how many new motherboards have the option to "press f2" or whatever
to choose a boot device during POST? Such a handy feature.

Swampy...you can do a lot from a floppy, and I've been doing that sort of
thing for many years, long before Windows was useful, but booting from the
CD is a lot easier and better.

-John O

Swampy wrote:

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

Simply boot from the WinXP installation CD. You'll be offered the
opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part of the
installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the order of boot
devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)

HOW TO Install Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default...B;en-us;316941

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

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


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

JohnO wrote:

Each motherboard manufacturer chooses its own specific keystroke for
entering the BIOS. There's a wide variety of methods.

Wim's BIOS Page
http://www.wimsbios.com/

Accessing Motherboard BIOS
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

"Bruce Chambers" <bchambers@cable0ne.n3t> wrote in message
news:e%2366x1OZIHA.4712@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

dick blisters wrote:


That would be a waste of time. There is no "low level format" since MFM
and RLL drives were replaced by IDE.

"Bob I" <birelan@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:eOOL%23hPZIHA.6044@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
That's funny I have a troubleshooter floppy disk from Forfront that I use
to lowlevel format hard drives among other things.

Thanks everyone who responded. I've carefully read all your responses and I
understand all that each of you have said.

Here's what's going on now:
At first, I didn't understand that I needed to boot from the cd-rom (E:
drive), so I ran the Dell re-install disks from Windows. My previous files
were suppose to be overwritten (I thought), but the extra overflow of files
stayed on my PC. In other words, my pc was not cleaned or deleted, even
though that's what I asked for. Now I have 2 sets of Window XP OSs on my
puter. That caused my pc much grief. Nothing has worked right since then.
FYI I have a 120 GB hard drive. An MVP told me that I could not get a clean
reformat with a HD that large. Is that true? I don't know.????

Now, for some unknown reason, when I try to change the boot order in my
bios, I am able to accomplish changing the order of boot to the cd-rom to
the point of saving the changes and exiting by pressing "ESC". At that
point, nothing happens (no save and no exit) and I'm stuck in Bios at that
point. I couldn't get out of the Bios, so I had to hard boot out.

My pc is still a mess, so this time I'm trying to be a little more careful
and learn as much as I can before trying to reformat again.

So....thanks for any help everyone. My own patience is getting a little
frazzled, but I'm hanging in there. <smile>

Bill

You'll need to define what you mean by "low-level" format. It's not the same
thing as it used to be.

-John O

John, I assume that you are speaking to Bob, because I don't have a clue
what a "low level format" is either.

First be sure that you really have an XP CD, or at least self-contained install media. In one of the replies you mention that this is a Dell computer and that you are using "Dell install disks". Be aware that some PC makers do not actually give you a CD copy of XP. Rather, they give you a CD that runs a program, which uses a hidden parition on the hard drive to perform the recovery. In such a case, if you erase the entire hard drive, then the recovery CD will do nothing useful. Thus, I suggest that you CONTACT DELL SUPPORT, before going further.

But, if you decide that you really want to erase everything on the hard drive, including partition definitions, that can be accomplished by running the XP recovery console (from CD or multiple floppy set) and then using the DELPART command. Links about the recovery console:
http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/wxprcons.htm

http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy33.htm (near bottom)

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_rec.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058

Or, use a single DOS floppy with FDISK. Be sure to use the latest FDISK (or related non-Microsoft programs) that handle large disks:

http://www.bootdisk.com/dostools.htm

Or, use a related program called super-fdisk

http://www.newfreedownloads.com/Scre...per-Fdisk.html

Or, use the free ultimate boot disk, which includes a bunch of disk tools:

http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/


"Swampy" <wmwh1217@toast.net> wrote in message news:13q58mcar2iol4b@corp.supernews.com...

Nah, I was writing to the guy with the floppy that low-level formats HDDs.
I'm curious what that program *really* does, as low-level formatting isn't
done outside of the factories. IIRC it's a device-specific process. Today
the term "low-level format" is sometimes used to describe wiping a drive
with all zeros.

Not that I care all that much, but it might be an interesting discussion
that I don't recall seeing here before.

-John O

"JohnO" <johno@!NOOSPAM!heathkit.com> wrote in message
news:OXHxq3bZIHA.3940@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
from a friend that works in a shop were he services/repairs computers.



Not that I care all that much, but it might be an interesting discussion

that is a hard way another way is to set your bios to boot from cd rom.
make sure your xp cd is in the cd rom drive and restart. the computer will
boot from the cd before it boots from the hard drive . you should have the
blue screen and it will promt you from there.

"Swampy" <wmwh1217@toast.net> wrote in message
news:13q58mcar2iol4b@corp.supernews.com...

dick blisters wrote:

It is misnamed, at best that program only writes out zero to all the
clusters/sectors. IF it actually "low level formatted" the drive, you
would have a paperweight.

Thanks mo. I'll give it a try.

Thanks to everyone for your responses.

"Bruce Chambers" <bchambers@cable0ne.n3t> wrote in message
news:OqNdI3OZIHA.4712@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
You misunderstand. This is not the key to enter the BIOS setup. This is a
key that takes you to a BIOS menu asking you from which device you wish to
boot. My own PC offers this but it is F12 that does the deed.