How to format C-drive!?

[S2 PTH]

I've got everything I want off this computer now, and its old and slow and running ME (933gHZ, 512memory, 27gig hd) and I want to completely wipe it and put XP on here.
When I go to right click on C, it says it cant do it coz its running windows- obviously! So do i have to do it from MS DOS?

Then what happens? How do i load up windows once the disk is completely empty?

HelP!

_phil

 

[riche]

Boot from the windows XP disk. then just wipe comp and install from there.

 

[David]

yes as above...put in the xp cd and and it will say press any key to boot from cd....then just foloowing the on screen instructions until it says format NTFS not quick

 

[JoelDee]

Just whack in your XP Cd and its simple from there

 

[wozzaa]

yes as above...put in the xp cd and and it will say press any key to boot from cd....then just foloowing the on screen instructions until it says format NTFS not quick

You can do it quick if its already got the NTFS system installed. The non quick version just writes the FAT so it is NTFS (FAT is just the filing system) if its already formatted to NTFS quick will be fine.

Also recommend you partition the drive keep C: as 5gb that way you can save everything on another partition usually D: and if in future you get a comp virus or something a quick format of C: will do and you can still keep all downloaded programs and other files.

its what i do cause i can not be bothered formatting 400gb everytime i install windows. Which is everytime i change hardware which in my case is weekly.