Formatting the Hard Drive

Question

I have an old Dimension XPS T450 that's going on its 6th year. It came with Windows 98 Second Edition, which I upgraded to Windows XP Home a few years back. What I'd like to do is just format the hard drive to get everything off of it and start fresh. I've copied all the documents I want to keep on to the shared folder on my laptop, so I'm all set with that. I selected 'safe mode with command prompt' for my boot option to try to give the format command, it says the volume is in use do I want to force a dismount, yes. Can't force a dismount because its locked. Ok, so I try to create a MS-DOS floppy boot disk, I do this and boot with it in the A: drive, but windows just starts up like there is nothing in the drive. So then I put my old Windows 98 SE boot disk in the floppy drive and get into its own command prompt. Try typing in the format command, but now it doesnt recognize C:. So then what I try to do is just put the XP CD in and tell it I want a new installation thinking that its going to erase all my files. Instead what it does is install a fresh copy of XP but leaves all my old files on there! So I did some research today and I found a slightly different format command than what was in the Help section of windows XP, but I also read some stuff about Low-Level Formatting. I started looking into this and thinking this might be want I want to use. I looked it up on Dell's site and found the prompts to enter to initiate it in the DEBUG mode, however my problem whether or not I do a LLF is simply being able to enter the format command without locking the C drive. So if anyone could help me in telling me how to load up DOS or the command prompt without having C: locked I'd really apreciate it, and any insight on LLF would also be a great help. Thanks a lot. Message Edited by meezermania on 09-05-2004 01:22 PM

simpswr · Answer

Rick is right . . here are some guides you might want to look at.

You can get a reinstallation guide specific to your Dell here
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/software_reinstall/en/index?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn

This is a good guide for reinstalling on a Dell: http://www.djdenham.com/Install%20Procedures.htm

wrs

rickmktg · Answer

@meezermania wrote:
I have an old Dimension XPS T450 that's going on its 6th year. It came with Windows 98 Second Edition, which I upgraded to Windows XP Home a few years back. What I'd like to do is just format the hard drive to get everything off of it and start fresh. I've copied all the documents I want to keep on to the shared folder on my laptop, so I'm all set with that.

I selected 'safe mode with command prompt' for my boot option to try to give the format command, it says the volume is in use do I want to force a dismount, yes. Can't force a dismount because its locked. Ok, so I try to create a MS-DOS floppy boot disk, I do this and boot with it in the A: drive, but windows just starts up like there is nothing in the drive. So then I put my old Windows 98 SE boot disk in the floppy drive and get into its own command prompt. Try typing in the format command, but now it doesnt recognize C:. So then what I try to do is just put the XP CD in and tell it I want a new installation thinking that its going to erase all my files. Instead what it does is install a fresh copy of XP but leaves all my old files on there!

So I did some research today and I found a slightly different format command than what was in the Help section of windows XP, but I also read some stuff about Low-Level Formatting. I started looking into this and thinking this might be want I want to use. I looked it up on Dell's site and found the prompts to enter to initiate it in the DEBUG mode, however my problem whether or not I do a LLF is simply being able to enter the format command without locking the C drive.

So if anyone could help me in telling me how to load up DOS or the command prompt without having C: locked I'd really apreciate it, and any insight on LLF would also be a great help. Thanks a lot.

You're making it too complicated.

1) Turn computer off.

2) Boot it, hitting F2 to go to BIOS.

3) Set CD as primary boot device.

4) Put XP CD in.

5) Continue to boot. Follow install path, delete all partitions, make 1, format it, and install XP.

meezermania · Answer

@rickmktg wrote:

@meezermania wrote:
I have an old Dimension XPS T450 that's going on its 6th year. It came with Windows 98 Second Edition, which I upgraded to Windows XP Home a few years back. What I'd like to do is just format the hard drive to get everything off of it and start fresh. I've copied all the documents I want to keep on to the shared folder on my laptop, so I'm all set with that.

I selected 'safe mode with command prompt' for my boot option to try to give the format command, it says the volume is in use do I want to force a dismount, yes. Can't force a dismount because its locked. Ok, so I try to create a MS-DOS floppy boot disk, I do this and boot with it in the A: drive, but windows just starts up like there is nothing in the drive. So then I put my old Windows 98 SE boot disk in the floppy drive and get into its own command prompt. Try typing in the format command, but now it doesnt recognize C:. So then what I try to do is just put the XP CD in and tell it I want a new installation thinking that its going to erase all my files. Instead what it does is install a fresh copy of XP but leaves all my old files on there!

So I did some research today and I found a slightly different format command than what was in the Help section of windows XP, but I also read some stuff about Low-Level Formatting. I started looking into this and thinking this might be want I want to use. I looked it up on Dell's site and found the prompts to enter to initiate it in the DEBUG mode, however my problem whether or not I do a LLF is simply being able to enter the format command without locking the C drive.

So if anyone could help me in telling me how to load up DOS or the command prompt without having C: locked I'd really apreciate it, and any insight on LLF would also be a great help. Thanks a lot.

You're making it too complicated.

1) Turn computer off.

2) Boot it, hitting F2 to go to BIOS.

3) Set CD as primary boot device.

4) Put XP CD in.

5) Continue to boot. Follow install path, delete all partitions, make 1, format it, and install XP.

Thanks, did this and it worked fine!

Storage, Drives & Media

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