at first when i got into the world of pc etc and formatting basic way to format c: then i went to a local pc retailer and he told me of anther way by doing format c:/u somet to do with an unconditional formatt is ther any other way to format windows 9x

Open a dos (MSDOS Prompt) window and type in; format/? and hit Enter. The syntax/options will be listed. It's a good day when you learn something

Format.com is a dos command. Not actually anything to do with windows. Most dos commands have switches to change the way they work. The /u switch (BTW it's good practice to put a space before it) is as you said, unconditional. This means the computer will not store information in a hidden file for the uformat command to use. The other common switch is '/q' (quick), this causes the format command just to erase the file allocation table and mark the drive as unused. Most of the other switches used with the format command are for floppy disks.

With the large drives being used today the best method is to use the utility on the CD that came with the disk. If no CD, then download the utility. These utilities can sometimes even overcome the problems associated with the large disks requiring a 48 bit LBA compliant OS and BIOS.