I badly need to reformat my hard drive and wipe it clean of everything. I wanted to know what the best way to do this is. I'm using Windows XP & have never done it on my current PC, the last time I did it, I did it via a command prompt screen. Any help would be great. Thanks.
Set your PC to boot from CD with the setup menu when you boot it up. Then reboot it with the Windows XP CD in there. You'll get a screen asking what you want to do - - you want to install Windows. You want to, but make sure it's NOT a repair installation. When you get that, press Escape to bypass it. It'll now pull up a list of partitions. The instructions are at the top (can't remember them), but you want to delete your C:\ partition (and any others), then make a new one and install Windows on it. After you do that, the next step is gonna reformat the drive. Hope that helped.
Do I need to use the Windows disk to reformat? It's just that last time I did this I formated my hard drive without a disk and then installed Windows afterwords. Is it better to do it with the Windows disk? I suppose it doesn't really matter, I'm just curious.
You don't have to, but it's the easiest way. I just did it two weeks ago...and either way, you'll get the same results.
I just did the same thing last time. It's much harder when you have to try to get past the fucking OSX86 bootloader. *headdesk*
Okay, what is the best way to do it without going through windows? It's just that my PC keeps freezing and has become unstable (which is one of the main reasons I'm formating) and it's deciding to freeze when I get to the windows screen. So if you can give me an alternative way to wipe my hard drive, I'd be grateful. Thanks in advance.
Exactly what the pilot said. That's the best way to do it. Just start up with your XP cd in (make sure cd is set to boot before hdd), then follow Joe's instructions. Either way, by reformatting you're wiping your whole drive, including Windows.
No, I don't think I made myself clear enough. I've tried to do it that way, but because my PC keeps freezing, by the time I've gotten to the screen where I choose which partition I want to format, it freezes on me. So if there's another way to avoid doing it without a disk or something, that might help. Thanks again.