Reformat XP

L

Lestat21

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I need a fast answer
What is the command to reformat my hard drive with XP pro

need a dos command anything please help me quick need to have a restore done tonght

I want the whole hard drive wipe open




Thank
 
If u have a XP cd u should be able to boot from that and do a format of any or all partions on ur hardrive
 
Thank you IM using the cd and reformatting now
thanks
 
Not a problem glad to be of some help
 
Is there a way of reformatting without using the CD? (Ive lost mine)
 
Use a bootable floppy to boot the system. At the A:\DOS prompt, type "FORMAT C:" (without the quotes) and you're off and running.

You do understand that all data will be lost. Other than than, it should work no problem.
 
You don't need a bootable floppy if you have the xp pro or home cd. Just let the computer boot up from cd and use the repair option. Then under the command prompt type in "format c:" without the quotes of course.
 
Just curious - if you manage to format the drive what are you going to do next? You said you lost your Windows cd.
 
That's how I did mine. I used my old Win98 boot floppy to reformat the HD and then installed WinXP Pro from the CD. Of course, you only get Fat32, but you can change to NTFS later if you desire.

This is a well known technique and works every time.
 
Posted by yoyo
Just curious - if you manage to format the drive what are you going to do next? You said you lost your Windows cd.
Sit there & look at a blank screen. :eek:
 
Posted by daddyo
That's how I did mine. I used my old Win98 boot floppy to reformat the HD and then installed WinXP Pro from the CD. Of course, you only get Fat32, but you can change to NTFS later if you desire.

This is a well known technique and works every time.

To my knowlage you can not use the format c: in DOS while you are using NTFS. Format c: only works on FAT32 partitions.

Why would you want to use FAT32 anyway ?
 
Geeze, this is getting more discussion than it's worth.

The easiest way to redo your HD is to delete the primary partition using FDISK and then set a new partition. You can do this from the Win98 boot disk. The resulting partition will be FAT32. Then you can format your drive from the A:\ drive using the FORMAT prompt. Once you have formatted the drive, you can change the partition to NTFS during the WinXP installation...it gives you the option of staying with FAT32 or converting to NTFS.

I find this technique useful if I want to do a clean install of my OS. It gets rid of every shred of every file on the HD, which is hard to do if you just use the "delete" command. It's much faster too.

I am officially bowing out of this subject. Hope this helps.
 
Format C:

Shouldn't the command be: [ Format C: \s ] ????

You will need the system files on there, right?

Doug
 
drd, if you are using a W98 startup disk you dont want to use the format/s command as surely it would put W98's system files on your new disk.
 

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