Hey.. I just got XP home edition upgrade, and i thought it would clear my hard drive of all my previous programs, but it didn't. How do i reformat so i have a clear disk? Thanks for you help.

if you upgraded, all your data will be kept. to format: go into the BIOS and change the boot sequence so the cd rom is above the floppy and hard disk. place the cd in the drive, and reboot. it should boot up form the cd instead of windows. setup windows, making sure you select it to install on the current windows partition, with a full NTFS convert. this should fully format your hard disk, and wipe any data you had. make sure you backup any files you want/need before doing this.

What is BIOS? I'm sorry i don't know very much about computers. And how do i get to BIOS? Thank you.

when the computer is switched on, a black screen appears. it says at the bottom something like 'press del to enter setup'. press 'delete' (not backspace) to enter what is known as the BIOS (Basic Input-Output System). have a look in there, and you shoudl see a list somewhere looking somethings like: legacy floppy [make] hard disk [make] cd rom [make] cd rom that's what mine looks like anyway. the first thing, the floppy disk, is what windows checks for a boot device first, then failing that, checks the hard disk. this is how a boot disk works. windows find a boot record on the floppy disk, so loads that. without a boot disk in, it doesnt detect anything in the floppy, so searches the hard disk - finding windows. move the cd rom up to the top of the list (probably using the + key) to make the system look for a boot record on the cd rom first.

Sir you say you don't know anything about computers, if thats true you should not try formating your hard drive, its very complicated procedure for some one with little or no knowledge about computers, take it to some one who knows what they are doing. Frank

Well i do know some about computers, i just didn't know what BIOS was. The only reason i want to formatt my computer is because i have so much stuff on it that i don't use and i don't need and it just makes my system run slower. When i had 98, it kept crashing and everything and i just wanted to start on a clean slate. I thought XP was going to erase everything for me, but i guess not. So you say i shouldn't reformat? And also would going to My Computer, click once on the c drive, then go up to file and click format work? I really coudln't find out how the BIOS thing worked. I found the list, but it was all different from yours. And when i put cd-rom first, it went to some weird screen and asked if i wanted original configuration, the i clicked it cause it was the only thing to click, and the computer just booted up normally.

Alright i think i had it. I insertred my XP disc, and when the auto-run screen came up, i press install xp. Then I picked New Install or Fresh Install, instead of Upgrade install. I thought it was going to erase everything, but after i was all done and everything, and i start to reinstall all of my programs, it says the folder is already there. So i go into my computer, and it turns out all of my folders are still there. I went to start>find> and looked for some old stuff, and it turns out all of it was in the c:/documents and settings folder. I'm really frusturated. Any help would be appreaciated. I just want it so i have a fresh hard drive with no virsues or nothing on it. Just IE. Thank you in advance.