I am trying to reinstall Win Xp and I wanted to do a clean install to eliminate some problems I have been having, however my system freezes during the formatting process. I have left it for over five hours to make sure that it is really locked up. Once it was 57% through the process and when I restarted it, it only got 43% into the process. I have tried it three times. I have had this computer about 9 months and wanted to reinstall XP before and the system kept freezing so I sent it in and they replaced the hard drive. I have had it for about two months it is freezing up again during the installation of XP. Please help!

How are you doing the Format?

Have you attempted to install XP on this drive before deciding to do the FORMAT. If so you would be best served by doing a FDISK and deleting all partitions on the drive and the making one partition. Then give it FAT32 format: using x> format c: /u command. [x is the drive letter; /u is the switch fo unconditional which will delete any peculiarities in the MBR].

I am formatting the HD using the procedure that is included with the setup of XP. After I have selected the drive I want the OS to be installed on it ask if I want to format it, which I do and select the NTFS option. I have tried both the regular and quick formatting and it freezes in both. Since I do not have any other operating systems on this computer, can I do the FDISK? It has been suggested to me to use the NTFS since I do not have any older operating systems on this computer but you suggested the FAT32. Is some of my problems coming from the NTFS formatting?

Try getting yourself to the Recovery Console (via XP CD or Downloaded XP bootdisk from Microsoft) and type FORMAT C: /FS:NTFS. You can change the drive letter and NTFS can be FAT32 if you want that file system instead. If you cant get to the recovery console from the CD go to Microsoft.com and download the XP bootdisk, which takes up 6 floppies. Put the first one in and reboot. It will load all 6 into memory and ask if you want to go to setup or recovery console.