Reformat

Okay, kinda embaressing problem ive got here:

I wanna reformat my drive.. start afresh.. with Windows XP Home. Ive got one 30GB drive, and i wanna install XP Home onto it from a blank.

Now i thought that windows setup let you reformat your drive... evidently i was wrong.

It tells me that its copied the files onto the partition for setup, and cant format over itself, which is fair enough i suppose...

So, how can i format?

Right now im doing a "repair" instead so i can get it back up and usable again.. but id rather reformat

TIA peeoples

 

Did you boot from the CD?? If it has copied files then you are already past the point where set up asks to format

 

Ah..

Well, actually what i did was i loaded it up in windows, then said "Clean install" from there....

i suppose it copied the files across before it restarted ooh dear..

Oh well im going to ranish it and then isntall again..

 

If I remeber correctly..which is quite doubtful for me
You will need to boot from the CD and then do a format from there..
Once you loaded windows...it wouldn't "allow" you to format

 

Nah this was after i restarted... so the windows setup files were in the MBR, which basically leaves me with a useless copy of windows that tries to boot setup every time i start it up.

So, as you say, I'm going to boot from the CD next time... straight off.. rather than booting from setupfiles on the HD

Filling with zero's right now

 

WHY?!?!

Okay, so i re-formatted the partition i wanted to use...and i run windows install, and towards the end, it says "D:\$secure corrupted, please run chkdsk" and i think well thats stupid 1. its not a writable disk, its a CD drive 2. how did it get corrupted?

So, i contiune... and i boot into my newly created windows... to find after a few moments it freezes, beeps at me, and crashes.

I restart, to find it now wont even boot. Im now trying to get it into safe mode... but stilll

 

ah. Ive just realised.

I still have an almost dead Hard drive plugged in and re-installing windows blanked my setting to "not detect" it. So its probably put the page file on it, and when it failed it brough the whole system down...

 

Are we having fun yet???

 

Fun, fun, fun 'til ...

Yeah, keep us posted tonight and tomorrow, fisher-man. Reading this tale of woe, frustration, discovery, and hope has been better than watching professional wrestling.

Ain't it good to know everybody here's cheering fer ya?