Reformat hard drive under XP? - Comments Page 6

This article was great - however, when I ran the format last night, everything seemed fine until it said it was missing a file and would never reboot. Some sort of sys32 file or something? Any ideas what's wrong?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Perhaps you have a bad CD and a file couldn't be copied?

Hello, Thanks for this helpful article So i reinstalled Windows XP by myself But it's not working, now i have this message
"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \system32\hal.dll.
Please re-instal a copy of the above file."
But now i dont know what to do,or the next step. Can you please help me.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I suggest booting into the Recovery Console, and then running CHKDSK. If that doesn't work, try a repair install. See http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Hey, I'm trying to reformat a hard drive, when I attempt to delete the parition windows is on at the moment it tells me that it containts temporary setup files and the partition can not be deleted. DO you know how to get around this?

EDITOR'S NOTE: It sounds like you forgot to BOOT from the CDROM. You can't format the "active" drive while running Windows.

Hello Bob. I am reformatting using XP. I am adding new memory and a new AGP card due to hardware failure. I currently have a dual boot with ME and XP. From what I remember I could not get XP to format as NTFS due to the dual boot. I have backed up documents, picture files and music files. Here is my question: Will the format change from FAT 32 to NTFS affect my ability to use my backed up documents, picture files and music files?

EDITOR'S NOTE: I can't think of any reason why it would matter.

Have a Microtel computer with Windows XP. I am attempting to reformat following instructions to the letter. When it gets half way installing Windows XP it just freezes. It will not get beyond that point no matter how many times I try. Have been told it might be the mother board. Thanks!

EDITOR'S NOTE: It could also be a defective CDROM, or a damaged hard drive.

Hi Bob, Great site. I'm trying to reformat a laptop hard drive, but whenever I try to delete the partition on which Windows is installed, it won't let me, due to "Temporary Installation Files." I don't have enough HD space to currently install it on the drive. Now I can't get past the installation screen. Please help!

EDITOR'S NOTE: You forgot to boot from the CD, it seems.

I recently bought a Toshiba Laptop with Windows vista. Its perfromance has been very very slow ever since. I asked the store to dump vista and install XP for me and they would not do it. I have 1 gig of memory with 120 gig hard disk and quite a fat processor about 1.3 GHZ. What could I do to this machine to make it perform faster?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Very slow ever since... what? Since you bought it, or did something happen? More RAM is probably the best bang for the buck.

Hi Bob, Im having problems formating my laptop hard drive so as to reinstall winXP. Have tried to format using the steps above but get the following message- 'The disk may be damaged. Make sure the drive is switched on and properly connected to your computer. If the disk is a SCSI disk, make sure your SCSI devices are properly terminated.' Can you help?

EDITOR'S NOTE: At what point do you get this message? Are you sure you're booting from a CD?

Hi Bob, I'm trying to reformat a hard drive, when I attempt to delete the partition windows is on at the moment it tells me that it contains temporary setup files and the partition can not be deleted. I changed boot order in the BIOS with ATAPI CD-ROM Drive on top and then Hard Drive then Floppy Diskette Drive followed by Network Adaptor at the bottom and selected F10 to save and exit. DO you know how to get around this?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, you must boot from the CD. If you boot from the HD, you will get that error.

Bob, Great sight, and although it did not quite give me the answer I was looking for, it prompted the old grey matter to 'get it'. I was trying to install XP and reformat the drive, but kept getting the message about not being able to due to Setup files. Your site mentions not being able to format the drive XP is on and having not booted from the disk. Suddenly dawned on me that I was using a wireless keyboard and so it was possible that when I pressed 'any key' it was not registering and thus not booting from the disk. Plugged in a wired keyboard and presto. The key thing to notice if you think this might be your error, is that if you boot from the CD you have to click F8 to accept the license agreement and if you don't boot from the CD you click with your mouse to accept the licence agreement.