Cannot format PLEASE help

Hi folks,

I come to you all in desperation after trying many ...... many different things all just to format my C:

I have the XP disk however when its inserted and computer rebooted it will no boot from the CD ie... give me the option to format my C:
I get the option to boot from CD and it says press any button to boot from CD however when I press a button windows just starts up normally.

I ve tried and tried to access the command prompt at start up however my keyboard (USB) is unresponsive at this point and will not let me arrow up to select command prompt or safe mode. I just have to wait for 25 seconds till it automaticaly starts windows normally.
The Keyboard works at the very start of the boot (I have to press F1 to actually move on from the inital start up to start windows... and I can access the BIOS settings by pressing DEL however once it moves on from here it seems to be disabled until windows is started.

I have even tried taking the computer to bits and putting the C: in another computer to format it however this did not work either.

I have tried to format C: using COMMAND and CMD however none of these options work either.
In CMD it says it cannot force shut down the drive as the volume is still in use by another programe.
COMMAND will not let me type - format C: /U when I try to insert the symbol ':' it comes up as some crazy chinese character.

Is their any command I can enter to get my keyboard not to disable for the time I have to press F8 or allow me to arrow up to select start windows in Command Prompt mode?

Or

Is there anyway at all to format C: from windows without doing it from the boot up stage?

I have looked in my BIOS settings and there is no option for anything to do with a USB keyboard or any keyboard for that matter, I have taken the battery out of the mother board for one min and that didnt work either.

Please help me.... all I want to do is format this dam drive

Thanks

Mak D