My buddy dropped off a computer for me to fix, lucky me. The system is and old Gateway with Win2000, 128mb ram, not sure about cpu. He wants the HD formatted, but I'm unable to run format from dos. I don't have any cd's that came with the pc, nothing. Do I need a special start-up disk or what? All I want to do is format clean/delete his stuff and reinstall the os. Thanks

Formatting isn't really a 'fix', kind of the opposite - it's what people do when they have no other ideas The Win2K CD should be all that you need - just boot from that DOS does not deal well with NTFS drives, as this probably is - - you can repartition & format as FAT32, although you might need a tool such as delpart - - but there's rarely a need to go that route You say you don't have any CDs, but you are going to reinstall.... ? I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter.

True, no cd, I think he has an old copy of Win98 or something, not real sure. I was going to dump the HD and let him figure out the rest, but without the 2k cd, I can't seem to format.

http://www.killdisk.com This will wipe the hard drive of all formatting, then you can give it back for your friend to play with........

If your intention is to reinstall Win2K after formatting, you *must* have the installation CD - - this is not "rocket science" (although it might as well be?) I'm often puzzled when folks offer up their machines to the inexperienced in order to 'fix' "I think he has an old copy of Win98" Now that is confidence inspiring - - if that is the case, then Win98 it shall be - - you will find a Product Key is required I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter.

Hi jboy, Yeah, my favorite housecall to go on is one where a couple of friends have 'helped'. ===================================== If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

My *intention* was to find out how to format the drive. Without a Win2K cd, I couldn't do anything else but wipe it clean, but what good is a blank hd without an OS? For you rocket scientists out there, you'll find the product key on the cd case, if you actually purchased the software. Thanks anyway, he found the Win2K cd, and we fixed it, not bad for the inexperienced.