Hi, i have xp pro installed. i want to reformat the hard drive, and reinstall new xp, however i cannot get into BIOS to reformat. This is what i have done: XP cd in drive switch computer on, press any key,an image MSI appears on screen than press DEL A new screen appears AMIBIOS Setup, tried may ways to set up BIOS to reformat, just cannot get it on the screen ? HAve done it on another computer before, and dead simple, this one just wont open the BIOS window, have a standard keyboard and UBS mouse connected, could that be a problem. Thanks for any one help.

You don't use the BIOS to format a computer. There is nothing there that will do it. The only thing you do in the BIOS is to ensure that the CD drive is the first boot device. Once you have done that you re-boot and boot from the CD. Once the CD has booted you follow the instructions on the screen. Formating sets up the file system for the operating system you are about to install. In this case Windows XP and the file system will be either FAT32 or NTFS. If you were installing Linux it would be different again. Stuart

Hi I just re-booted from cd, followed instructions on screen On screen MSI logo appears at bottom it states press TAB to switch to POST or DEL to run BIOS set up if i press TAB or DEL it prompts to press Ctrl+S if i do not press Ctrl+S, XP is opened in the normal way. if i press Ctrl+S, again same thing XP is opened in the normal way. Just to let you last week installed XP on new HD. After installing XP, there was not internet connection, thereafter crivers were installed. Due to the size of the HD, decided wanted to reformat the HD and partition the HD into 2 drives C & D. Managed to format the HD last week, following same procedure, however it wont open up the window to reformat now ? Thanks

>> press TAB to switch to POST or DEL to run BIOS set up << That is not booting from the CD. This line appears every time you boot the computer. You should get a line "Press any key to boot from CD" If you don't see this line or you don't press a key it wont boot from the CD. Make sure the CD is the first boot device otherwise it will continue to boot from the hard disk which is what is happening. Stuart

Hi Stuart, Thanks, just managed to do it. Thanks for your help. Kanti