I am trying to trash the hard drive on an old computer so that I can start totally over again. How can I delete all contents of the drive? I am trying to delete command.com but it says access denied. I have tried attrib -r and deltree but it says bad command or file name! What do I do? The OS was 3.1 but I booted up in dos and deleted the OS. Michael

Use a boot disk with format.com on it; at the dos prompt type A:\>format [drive:] Say you want to format drive D: A:\>format d: If you have just an upgrade version of dos disks, when the blue screen of setup starts, hit the F3 key to exit to the dos prompt and type A:\>format C: /s then restart the dos installation and choose "copy over old OS" or whatever it says. If you're wanting to install later versions of windooze, just type format [drive:] without the /s.

Hey thanks for the reply. I tried your suggestion but it told me wrong DOS version. I don't know what to do... Michael

Try making a boot disk from a windows machine if you've got one handy. Open a dos box and type c:\windows>format a: /s enter key cd\windows\command enter key copy format.com A: enter key Or put a disk in the a: drive, open "my computer" and right click on the a: drive icon. Select format, cleck of the add "system files" or whatever it is. After that, move to the windows\command folder and choose "copy" on the format.com file and then paste it into the a: drive. Give that a try.

I disagree with the above. 1)Using dos, create a bootable floppy by:- FORMAT A: /S /U /C Then copy FORMAT.* and FDISK.* to it. 2)use this floppy to boot from on your pc. 3)Use FDISK to check the partition(s) and change if required. 4) Format the hdd concerned:- FORMAT drive: /U /C include option /S if you want to copy the system files to it. Good luck - keep us posted.

Don't bother using the /U switch - there isn't even a clear understanding of what it is. Some people say it's a "low level" format (which is garbage). Others state that it "wipes the fat table" (which is also garbage, since every format wipes the fat). On floppies I've found that it seems to overwrite every sector - I'm not sure if this is the case for HDs. In any case it will make the format slower. The /C command tests clusters. No point in using it on floppies since their clusters will be marked bad anyway. Also no point in using it on the hard drive unless it's had a virus. Use "format c: /q /autotest" - that will do a quickformat which is identical to a standard format. The only way you couldn't use this is on a new partition which would need to be formatted slowly. Btw, http://dos.li5.org/bd.exe for the self extracting version of techw0rm v5.4 (then double click install.com with a floppy in) --- that will create a boot floppy for you that will have everything you'll need. Just use "skip startup" and then "nothing" to get to the dos prompt, type "format c: /q /autotest" and you're done. - Ben Cadieux - http://dos.li5.org

You could also use a bootdisk of whatever os you intend to install (available at wwwbootdisk.com) and use fdisk to remove the old partitions and create the correct partion then use the format to get the correct format. Look here for instructions http://computing.net/howto/advanced/partition/