Reformat hard drive under XP? - Comments

I was looking on the internet b/c no businesses would tell me how to reformat my hard drive w/o paying 75 dollars thanks for the info. Thank you -- Jonathan

The only problem is that most new computers don't come with a Windows CD anymore. How do you do it without one? Thanks...Don

EDITOR'S NOTE: That's an annoying practice used by lowball PC vendors. A quality vendor will give you the actual CDROM (which costs them about 30 cents). Without
the CDROM or a recovery disk of some sort, you're stuck.

Heavens, even some of the highball PC vendors are doing this! You pay all of that money for a new PC and they don't even give you either a Recovery Disk or Windows XP CD-ROM disk. What they do, is partition the Hard Drive to place the Windows XP install components. However, one way to get around this is to purchase a Windows XP CD-ROM disk. Yes, I know this is expensive and you must activate it, but I would much rather have a disk in hand, than the stupid partition.

That is just ONE reason why I prefer building my own PCs. I know what I have and what I have purchased. I get the best components I can afford. I have also learned to purchased the previous models, you get them at a much cheaper price and they are just as good. The latest is not really a good buy, these days. Since, PC components are upgraded, so, quickly. This is true of motherboards, graphic cards and memory. So, I look for those items that were the newest, about 6 months or so ago.

Thank you very much for all the info, been looking around and for this type of info everywhere else and it costs money. Thanks again. I have bookmarked your site for future reference. Ta lee.

What do you do when your computer won't allow you to delete the existing partition? Mine won't and I can't quite seem to find the answer anywhere. I'm using windows xp if it helps.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Are you booting from the CDROM? If so, you should be able to delete any partition using FDISK.

I think my hard drive just died...I got an error 1000-1042 and it wont start up windows...I was wondering if there is a way to save my hard drive...I dont care about the files...could reformating fix it...how would some do this without windows starting up?

EDITOR'S NOTE:If you have a hard drive that's throwing errors, and you don't care about the files, TOSS IT IN THE GARBAGE! Drives are so big and cheap now...

With Windows XP You can start system recovery with out the recovery disc by pressing f10 right after you boot up and see the HP logo. YOU HAVE TO PRESS F10 BEFORE WINDOWS logo APPEARS. Then follow directions for system recovery.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This may be a feature of some HP computers, but will not work on all. It would require a separate, pre-installed recovery partition.

I did everything above, deleted partition, made partition, install necessary files to HD, restart to HD, and this is where computer hangs. It goes to the "window's XP splash screen" with the green scroll moving for a few seconds and then it stops.

No action anymore, I don't know what is wrong. The original HD was working, I just put in the windows xp cd to do a fresh install and can never get pass the xp splash screen. Please help...

Definitely added to favorites!

I have this problem also, BUT, I cannot format the drive(s) 2 of them, using Windows XP format option you mentioned. It formats the drive(s) to 100% then I get an error saying that the drive(s) are damaged. How can BOTH drives be damaged if they both format to 100%? Are you aware of this problem and how to get around it? Thanks.