Computer savvy people.. help save me from having to buy a new PC!!!

[ilovemycaitybug]

Can ANYONE tell me how to reformat my hard drive??? I've done it a million times it seems, but I simply cannot remember how. I have tried booting with the WindowsXP CD in (with BIOS set to boot first from CD), but it just skips over it and boots to my desktop anyway... grrr! So I made a boot disk (using Format on the A drive). When I boot with it in, it won't go to the desktop but it also doesn't recognize the C drive or the CD/DVD drive. I remember the whole "format c:" prompt... if I could only get to the place to do it! And the cmd prompt while IN Windows won't let me since it says it's locked. Crap . I don't really want to get a computer right now, I want to save up for a Mac. Can anyone tell me what to do??? I've read that since my hard drive isn't FAT32 I can't use the MS-DOS boot disk I made anyway. And oh yeah, when I do put it in it says Windows Millenium!?!?

I'm at my wits end.

Help!

[Granny]

It sounds like your boot sequence is set to C: and then A:. When you boot up the computer, hit the F8 key or the Del kety to get to the CMOS window and change the boot sequence to the CD first.

Since I don't remember each step, I copied the steps from a website site:

you'll need to partition and format the C drive.

Windows XP and 2000 users:

1. Format C drive data by inserting the Windows disk and restarting

2. The computer will automatically boot from the CD

3. Simply follow the prompts to format the C drive and reinstall Windows


Windows 95, 98, and ME users:

1. Format C drive data by booting the computer from a startup disk

2. Insert the disk and restart the computer

3. At the prompt type "a:"

4. Hit enter and type "fdisk" to create a Primary DOS Partition

5. Restart your computer

6. Type "a:"

7. Type "format c:" to format the C drive


Hope that helps.

Granny