problem formating hard drive

[Guest sri]

I had only one partition on my hard disk with windows xp home edition. But I

wanted to install xp professional as a new install instead of upgrade. It

seems like the xp professional cd I have does not contain a boot file, even

when I restart the computer with the cd in it and changed the BIOS settings

to boot from cd, it is not recognizing any boot file. so it kept booting from

hard drive. so I just installed XP professional with the instal option from

the cd which never let me format the drive but installed xp professional on

the same drive. So I ended up with a lot of waste files from previous xp.

There was about 4 gb of memory that was freed because of this, which was

originally allocated for the recovery by the OEM version of previous xp home

edition. I assigned that a drive name E: Now how can I format the whole c:

drive and start afresh. It is not letting me format and install in c: drive.

Instead it just goes ahead and overwrites it. My computer is about 4 years

old and it is the first time I'm trying to format the hard drive 'coz it

became unbareably slow. Any help will be much appreciated

[Guest Colin Barnhorst]

Re: problem formating hard drive

 

This is not an XP newsgroup. It is a Windows 64bit newsgroup, as its name

says. You should use microsoft.public.windowsxp.general instead. This

group discusses issues with Vista x64, Windows Server 64bit editions, XP Pro

x64, and Itananium 64bit editions. Having said that....

 

Is your XP Pro cd a retail cd? Full edition or Upgrade edition? Where did

you get it?

 

I think you know this, but just in case; You can only format the C: drive by

booting with the XP cd. You cannot format from Windows.

 

What is the boot order in your BIOS? It needs to have the cd drive ahead of

the hard drive in order to boot with the cd. What setting did you change to

"boot from cd"?

 

Since XP Home came preinstalled on your computer do you have a Microsoft XP

Home cd, a restore cd, or none?

"sri" <sri@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:2DFBECF7-D4C4-427E-9B89-DBE8B55B292B@microsoft.com...

>I had only one partition on my hard disk with windows xp home edition. But

>I

> wanted to install xp professional as a new install instead of upgrade. It

> seems like the xp professional cd I have does not contain a boot file,

> even

> when I restart the computer with the cd in it and changed the BIOS

> settings

> to boot from cd, it is not recognizing any boot file. so it kept booting

> from

> hard drive. so I just installed XP professional with the instal option

> from

> the cd which never let me format the drive but installed xp professional

> on

> the same drive. So I ended up with a lot of waste files from previous xp.

> There was about 4 gb of memory that was freed because of this, which was

> originally allocated for the recovery by the OEM version of previous xp

> home

> edition. I assigned that a drive name E: Now how can I format the whole c:

> drive and start afresh. It is not letting me format and install in c:

> drive.

> Instead it just goes ahead and overwrites it. My computer is about 4 years

> old and it is the first time I'm trying to format the hard drive 'coz it

> became unbareably slow. Any help will be much appreciated

[Guest Charlie Russel - MVP]

Re: problem formating hard drive

 

or create a boot floppy and boot from that. And format. Of course, if you

don't have a bootable CD, you are then hosed and have no way to install XP.

 

--

Charlie.

http://msmvps.com/xperts64

http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

 

 

"Colin Barnhorst" <c.barnhorst@comcast.net> wrote in message

news:7E1260BF-A568-46DF-96D6-DEC86E201827@microsoft.com...

> This is not an XP newsgroup. It is a Windows 64bit newsgroup, as its name

> says. You should use microsoft.public.windowsxp.general instead. This

> group discusses issues with Vista x64, Windows Server 64bit editions, XP

> Pro x64, and Itananium 64bit editions. Having said that....

>

> Is your XP Pro cd a retail cd? Full edition or Upgrade edition? Where

> did you get it?

>

> I think you know this, but just in case; You can only format the C: drive

> by booting with the XP cd. You cannot format from Windows.

>

> What is the boot order in your BIOS? It needs to have the cd drive ahead

> of the hard drive in order to boot with the cd. What setting did you

> change to "boot from cd"?

>

> Since XP Home came preinstalled on your computer do you have a Microsoft

> XP Home cd, a restore cd, or none?

> "sri" <sri@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

> news:2DFBECF7-D4C4-427E-9B89-DBE8B55B292B@microsoft.com...

>>I had only one partition on my hard disk with windows xp home edition. But

>>I

>> wanted to install xp professional as a new install instead of upgrade. It

>> seems like the xp professional cd I have does not contain a boot file,

>> even

>> when I restart the computer with the cd in it and changed the BIOS

>> settings

>> to boot from cd, it is not recognizing any boot file. so it kept booting

>> from

>> hard drive. so I just installed XP professional with the instal option

>> from

>> the cd which never let me format the drive but installed xp professional

>> on

>> the same drive. So I ended up with a lot of waste files from previous xp.

>> There was about 4 gb of memory that was freed because of this, which was

>> originally allocated for the recovery by the OEM version of previous xp

>> home

>> edition. I assigned that a drive name E: Now how can I format the whole

>> c:

>> drive and start afresh. It is not letting me format and install in c:

>> drive.

>> Instead it just goes ahead and overwrites it. My computer is about 4

>> years

>> old and it is the first time I'm trying to format the hard drive 'coz it

>> became unbareably slow. Any help will be much appreciated

>