Hello, I am trying to install a fresh copy of XP pro on my c: drive. I have copied all the things i wanted to save (my music and documents) elsewhere already. My problem is that i can't format the drive to start over. I tried doing a fresh installation, but it didn't get rid of any of my old files, and i want to start over. How can i format my c: drive, so i can just get this going? Thanks! adam

I had this exact problem, this is what you do. first go to www.bootdisk.com, get the xp boot disk. 2. after the disk gives you the drive letters for your cds, run fdisk. 3. create a new partition. 4. exit out of fdisk 5. now we format your hd by typing format c: you've just formatted you hd. 6. installing xp, yea. acess the i386 directory on the xp cd, then type winnt.exe there ya go. xp is installing. if that doesnt work, get maxors powerdisk and that will do a low lvl format. takes a while, but it cleans the disk completly.

It's actually very simple. Boot using the CD. Go into your BIOS, and change the boot settings so that it tries the CD drive first. So now it will boot right into the XP setup. One of the first things it will ask you is if you want to re-install or do a fresh install. Tell it to do a new/fresh install. It should then ask you where to install to. Follow the directions on screen to delete whatever partitions are there. Then create a new partition and tell it to install, and format.

Actually, if this doesn't work for you, then try this: Get a Win98 boot disk with fdisk on it. Run fdisk. Tell it to delete the non-dos partitions. Use the #4 option to view the partitons on the drive. Keep deleting the existing partitions (if you have more than one) until that #4 option says there are none. Then run the XP install and it should partition and format for you.