Reformat hard drive under XP? - Comments Page 2

Is there anyway possible to use any form of boot disk or CD (including any kind of Linux Live CD boots) to format my XP active partition?
My Dell included an XP restoration CD that, interestingly enough, can only run once XP has started (tried various times to boot directly from the CD after a restart - with no success).
Surely there is a way in which I can clear the garbage off my main partition for nice, smooth-as-a-baby's-bottom clean install?

EDITOR'S NOTE: You can boot up with your XP CDrom, then choose the (R)epair option to reformat.

I have a 60Gb HD, single partition. The system has been very, very slow and has been giving me some strange errors (svchost application errors, very slow load times). The HD is turning but it sounds like it is skipping over a sector again and again. Lately and intermittently a blue screen has been telling me the computer cannot find certain files and is shutting itself down to "prevent damage to the system".

I back up my essentials data (takes forever) and decide to start clean. I put in the recovery CD, do a chkdsk, fixboot, fixmdr followed by a reformat. This is where it gets strange. It formats 7% of the disk, then hangs for a while . It then suddenly jumps to 100% formatted. I exit, and... it reboots FROM THE HD !! All the data is still there (as well as the problems).

My questions are: i) how can I reformat this drive? ii) is it time for a new HD or is this a problem somewhere else in the system (HD Controller? BIOS?)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Your hard drive is a burning ship, sinking fast... jump off before you go down with it!

Hey, i can't get it to boot with the XP Installation CD. when it says "Setup is checking your file config." or whatever it really says, and then the screen goes blank, and it acts like its restarting like normal, there is no way it will start!!!! when it tries to startup, it shows a blue screen with white print... i know what "The Screen of Death" looks like, and it's not that... but it shows the parameters....does this mean my hard drive is out???

EDITOR'S NOTE: Even with a bad HD, it should boot from the CD. CHeck your BIOS to see if booting from the CD is enabled and that it's first on the list.

My friend has a Dell 3000 and she deleted some temp files to clean the slow machine now the system doesn't boot up. It comes up with a screen that ask you to choose how to boot

NORMAL WINDOWS
LAST KNOWN GOOD RUNNING
SAFE MODE

But neither one works. I tried the tools CD to replace files missing but it doesn't help at all. Its there a way to fix this problem or I have to format the drive and how can I do it without the system bootin up. thank you.

EDITOR'S NOTE: You may be able to fix it with the Recovery Console. Search for the article on this site.

I made a comment last week or 2 about using the U key in Bios and you never put my post on here, please let me know my friend, thanks.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Your instructions for reformatting were very specific to the computer and BIOS you have, so they will not work for most users.

Hi Bob, I tried to install a new printer, but the scanner part would not work while everything else would (all-in-one type). I contacted HP about the problem, but no resolve to my problem. They finally told me to do a system recovery and start fresh, since I could not even uninstall the software for the printer with any uninstall option. So I backed up all my data, and started the system recovery through the System Recovery Wizard. It goes through the recovery part, restarts and I get the Windows start up screen, telling me "please wait"...after a long while I get some error messages about the "Windows Script Host" that it failed and after clicking OK on them (the only choice) it goes to a blue screen with the Windows XP logo and stays there and does not do a thing. I tried to start it up with my Recovery discs, but no chance, it just restarts with getting stuck at the same screen.
I tried the HP Recovery tools CD, with no luck from that either. What are my options now???
It is a fairly new computer, no problems with HD or other components, other than the new printer.
Any suggestions? Thank you for your time! Heike

EDITOR'S NOTE: Can you re-format and re-install from a "real" Windows setup CDROM?

RE- Formatting XP, after your load cd, you have options, do not do clean install, or refomat, but repair instead. If you must reformat I'm sure you where its hiding, computer/harddrive, hover over drive, right click on format, bingo one naked hdd, but think about backing up to disk first. Me learning, mostly by mistake and $, but am getting there. Good luck

This article was extremely helpful and I would recommend it to help anyone with there XP formatting!

I have a Packard Bell laptop with 60Gb HD and am trying to reformat it. I have only one partition but I cannot delete it as it tells me that temporary files are being stored there. I have tried to select boot from disc on my bios but it won't let me. How do I go about reformatting my laptop?

EDITOR'S NOTE: How are you attempting to format?

Can you reformat your hard drive and reinstall your OS if your PC only came with a recovery disk?

EDITOR'S NOTE: The recovery disk usually does exactly that.