Reformating/reinstall XP

[RandomNewb]

Got a couple questions, saw tons of topics with search, but still got my problems. My computer is full for useless junk, that I want to get ride of. Lot of it is Virus'/trojans I can't remove, and my harddrive getting full, I would like to get it back to nothing...ifs its possible.

I've tried going into DOS and "format C:" I get "format cannot run because the volume is in use by another process"

I've gone into boot setup, and placed CD-ROM to the top. Put in the CD and restarted. Stuck there, not really sure how I can get to the screen everyone talks about after this.

I've also read about a bootdisk, but it looked like it was only in WIN98 threads, so dont want to try that till it I know it works for XP.


Im guessing if I want to clear my computer I will need to both reformat and reinstall of XP, please correct me if Im wrong. If theres a thread/website I could follow, it would be great. I just want my computer back to standard. I dont really want to hide the deleted files like some other threads I read were about, like programs adding 0's (I dunno if that made since).

I'm also a little confused about what partitions are, and I know they have something to do with reformating.

Well, any help would be great.
Thanks,

RandomNEWB

 

[mikesgroovin]

Here are some instructions

-Mike

 

[str8lazy]

There are Windows XP bootdisk, you can find them on microsofts website. If you need to get an install of windows going thru bootdisks, that is what you need, and while you are there doing that, they give you the option to reformat and make partitions and all that great stuff.

A partition is when you take a single Hard Drive and you divide it up, like basically putting a "wall" on your HD, then you have 2 sides or however many "walls" you put up. And while inside of windows it will normally says Local Disk (C: ) and for the next partition it would say Local Disk (D: ) even though it is on the same drive.

I hope that that helps some, ask questions if you have them, and if there is something that I missed you guyz can go ahead and fill in the blanks.

 

[RandomNewb]

Ok, got to FDISK. At top it says

"Delete DOS Parition or Logical DOS Drive"
Current fixed disk drive: 1
Chose one of the following:
1. delete primary dos partition
2. delete extended dos parition
3. delete logical dos drives in the extended dos partition
4. delete non-DOS partition


I might be at the wrong place...dont know what to do from here.

 

[RandomNewb]

..

 

[mikesgroovin]

Ok, this is fine......first you have to delete the partition. If it's a previous NTFS partition then you will choose option 4 (non-DOS)

 

[mikesgroovin]

After you delete it then you will want to create a primary DOS partition. Then you will have to reboot. Load the bootdisk again, this time with CD-ROM support and then follow the instructions for formatting (line 8 in the above link) and on down the list.

 

[Vnet]

first of all tell wot your file system is....? from the details i guess you are on ntfs ...because dos does not support ntfs partition so they wont show them or access them ... so no C: is assigned to your hard drive ... right now when you boot it creates C: which is like a virtual drive which is made in your RAM...... so you cannot format that as that format command is also executed from that drive...... so you can use the fdisk ... you could also use disk manager DM2000 if you are using a seagate drive..!