Author Topic: going Nuts (Read 568 times)

FOGOLD · « **on:** March 20, 2003, 04:19:13 AM »

How the hell do you FormatC on a Win XP machine??

Mine is giving me hell with lockups and I've tried everything.
Now I made a boot disk in XP,m booted to it but can't get it to go to "C:" so that I can Format.It just says invalid drive letter or somesuch. "Format c:" gives bad command etc. I want a make a clean reinstall of XP. Can't find any help on the http://WWW. Bloody Hell!!!!

I don't want to reinstall windows like it prompts on the disk cos I know that won't solve the problem I want to FORMAT and Reinstall. The disk is NTFS of course in 1 partition which is fine.

Office window and PC are going to make terminal conact soon:mad:

Heater · « **Reply #1 on:** March 20, 2003, 06:01:59 AM »

Boot from the CD, the install process will start and you will get a prompted to select the install Disk & path etc...one of the options at one point you will have a choice to delete the current partition (Sorry I do not remember the exact order it comes in but read the on screen information it will tell you how to do it etc..)

Skuzzy · « **Reply #2 on:** March 20, 2003, 06:27:58 AM »

FDISK the drive then format it. You can put the fdisk and format utilites on the floppy from the XP CD.

Heater · « **Reply #3 on:** March 20, 2003, 06:43:49 AM »

One note on Fdisk, it will wipe the whole drive...os if you have other partition's it will kill them also.

Dingbat · « **Reply #4 on:** March 20, 2003, 07:56:48 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Heater
One note on Fdisk, it will wipe the whole drive...os if you have other partition's it will kill them also.

Wrong, it will only wipe what you tell it to

Quote

Boot from the CD, the install process will start and you will get a prompted to select the install Disk & path etc...one of the options at one point you will have a choice to delete the current partition

Correct.

FOGOLD · « **Reply #5 on:** March 20, 2003, 08:34:19 AM »

Got it. Win CD Recovery console allows you to Format C. Now I've got to get some day with no kids, no work to get it all running again. The worst thing is I half expect to be still getting random lockups cos I've lost my faith entirely.

Also I havn't a clue where or when it went wrong if it is software because It's a dedicated games machine and I think very hard before adding anything to it.

Watch this space and thanks for the responses everyone, especially Skuzzy.

You know I've been through the internet connection, the USB ports, Audio, Video drivers, bloody Via 4 in 1's blaming the Cougar cos it has this wierd driver which Win XP doesn't like. Bought a cheap joystick to test my theory, wondered about powered USB ports. Months of troubleshooting. Some nights AH ran great. Most nights though, BAM! Bzzzzzzz! hard freeze demanding reboot. Could be an hour in, could be 10 mins.Jeez this box cost £1300 and I never got any grief with my old PIII600 running Win95b(On which I type this)!

Ah well,

FOGOLD · « **Reply #6 on:** March 20, 2003, 08:34:56 AM »

Wake up there at the back! I'm having a rant:D

Heater · « **Reply #7 on:** March 20, 2003, 10:34:52 AM »

Dingbat, I stand corrected, I was thinking of "killer" on NTFS, it will wipe the complete disk.

Oops !!