Format HD

[Helmutt]

My lad is struggling trying to format his HD. The HD itself is full of total junk and it would be easier to start again rather than trying to find the problem areas (very slow performance). He has an official XP home edition disk but this seems to be overlooked on start up. We have tried using a floppy but keep getting "bad command" error when typing in "Format C:" or "Format C:\". I set the start up to read CD first but then just get a repeating error. Could this be due to the fact that the CD drive itself is not the original? Anyway if anyone has any ideas or experience with similar probs I would like to learn from them.

[BBDutch]

What is the repeating error? Have you set the CDROM to be the first bootup device in the BIOS as the fact that the drive may have changed doesn't make any difference if you're booting from CD......

The bad command error is usually because the system files are not on the floppy disc.

HTH

BBDutch

[unluckyfriedkitten]

It does sound like the cd drive is not set as the first boot device.
To set it up to boot from cd, when the computer starts to boot press the DEL button to enter the bios, the boot devices will be set to floppy then hdd0 and then cd rom, you need to leave the first boot device as floppy, set the second as cdrom and the third as hdd0, then press f10 to save and exit, confirm y when asked, the machine should restart and if heres no floppy in the drive it should boot from the XP cd

hope that helps

if the DEL button doesn't enter the bios try the higher F keys some compaqs and dells use that instead of the standard DEL

[Helmutt]

Thanks for the response guys. I did actually set the CD to be the 1st device and also tried it second to the floppy. In neither case did it work. It was like the CD was being ignored, hence my thought that the change in CD might have contributed. However, just before I did a check in DOS for the version and it came up "Windows Millenium 4.90.3000". As the computer is second hand I presumably have the XP CD ROM but not the ME one. Could this be the problem? I will try my old ME disk to see if it works or download a boot disk from Bootdisk.com. Any thoughts?

The reoccuring error I got yesterday was "strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for set up utility". F1 just repeated this comment. F2 took me into setup where I changed the CD to 1st device.

[Dave Mak]

best bet is a win98 boot disk, boot from it then from the command prompt type format c:

the not booting from cd is a problem tho, do you have 2 cd drives in the machine, if so then try disk in both drives. is it a proper winXP disk or is it a system restore disk?

[Helmutt]

That did not work.

Thinking about it I should have made the bootdisk OK if I was able to search the version in DOS. A:\>ver: For formating I am using A:\>format C: (hit return). Then I get the comment "Bad command or file name". Can anyone see anything obviously wrong here?

[Helmutt]

Sorry Dave Mak
Did not see your suggestion before my last post. There is a CDRW and DVDROM. I have tried both. The funny thing is in windows the disk runs but at the reboot it seems to be ignored even though I hear the drive kick in. Could this mean it is only a restore disk rather than boot disk?

[Helmutt]

Appear to have it going now with the ME disk. All drives being formated at present. Fingers crossed.

Cheers for all the help and suggestions.

[kejot]

a windows bootable disk asks after the post screen "press any key to boot from cd"
is this appearing???, it does pop up quite quick, and right at bottom of screen, might be worth checking

[SKUNK1111]

do the windows 98 boot disk when in dos type f/disk, when this is complete then delate your partions then dos partion,then simply create a new partion.Once this is done then the pc needs to boot off floppy agin then type in formart c:
That will work i hope
Whoops uve sorted it.O well its another method

[Helmutt]

Thanks guys. Kind of half sorted it but only two of the 3 drives formated. I will take a look at your suggestions.