Trouble formatting my HD

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quasar

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Hi people,

I'm trying to format my hard drive that has windows installed on. After I made my backups, I create a boot disk and set the boot priority in the bios as follow:

1: Floppy disk
2: CD-ROM
3: HD

I restart, with my boot disk in. It work, I get in DOS... I type

FORMAT C: /S /V

and it tells me that this is a bad command line.

If I type VER, it tells me that my version of DOS is called "Windows Millennium [Version 4.90.3000]". I presently run Windows XP Pro as my OS but Millennium was the one I used before that. I also read in a "How to format your HD" that it is necessary that "my DOS version is the same as my boot disk". This sentence is quite obscure but I believe it means that my DOS version would have to be "Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]" for it to work.

Now, I've been searching the net for that version of DOS but could not find it. And that's when YOU come in ;). Or if someone has a better idea, let it me heard. Thanks.
 
Boot from the Windows XP CD and reformat or use a Windows 98 Startup disk. Windows XP doesn't have a true DOS version, so if you use one of its DOS commands in, say, Windows ME which is true DOS, it won't work. I don't even know why Microsoft included the Windows ME DOS boot disk in XP.
 
I have seen that suggested in another "How to" and have tried it also....

I set my CD-ROM as the boot priority disk #1, inserted my Win XP CD and restarted the computer.

It said: if you want to boot from your CD-ROM press any key, which I did.

Then I got to a blue screen where I eventually got to chose from a menu. The choices were

1) install winxp
2) repair winxp (not for me)
3) quit

I tried 3) first but it simply restarted the computer. Then I tried 1) but decided to quit after a while once I saw that there really was nothing more there than installing win xp.

So how do you do this?

Thanks
 
What do you want to do, then. Why re-format if you don't want to install XP. From the install XP program, you set up your partitions, format, then install the OS.
 
Ok, so you're saying that if I had went a little further in the first option (install winxp) I would have arrived to a place where I am asked if I want to format my C drive?
 
or you could download a utility from the hard drive manufacture .
Use that to delete partitions write zeros to the drive for fresh install,Setup and format your hard drive .In your bios change your boot order to boot 1.floppy. 2.cdrom.3,hard drive .Once your installed change your boot order back to 1. floppy.2.hard drive,3.cdrom.
 
I have sucessfully formatted my HD.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this "topic" for your support!
 
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