I want to completely erase Windows XP

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@bradley walters wrote:

I want to completely erase any and all traces of Windows and anything else from hard drive, so that it's like brand new.  The problem is, I can't format the drive in CMD prompt. 

The reason I want to do this is because I'm installing XP Pro soon (from XP Home) and I don't want any traces of XP Home left.  I know I can put the Dell OS disc into my CDROM and reboot that way, but I want to completely erase my drive without using that disc. 

What should I do?

 

Thanks

You are trying to remove the operating system while it's running.  That's not going to happen.

When you go to install XP Pro (I'm assuming you have a need for it), you boot to the CD.  It then allows you to remove all partitions, make a new one, and install the OS.  Therefore, your drive will be erase.  Since you're going from Home to Pro, you should buy the UPGRADE version.

If you insist on wasting time and erasing the drive ahead of time, you boot to a Windows 98 startup disk and fdisk and format the drive.  You can make a disk from some sites including www.bootdisk.com. 

Rick,

Thanks for the site info.

The reason I want to completely erase my HD is because I think there's something wrong with it.  My i8600 came with XP Home, which was running fine until about a week ago.  The CPU usage would spike up to like %80 and stay there for a minute or so, slowing the CPU.  This would repreat over and over, basically making my compputer useless.  I tried Norton Anti Virus, Trend Micro House Call, Lavasoft AdAware and Webroot SPySweeper to get rid of viruses and and spies/adware.  Then I ran disk defrag twice and also disk cleanup.

My friends told me this was because I have too many large games on my HD.  But I think I have a worm or something.  Do you have any ideas?

bradley waters,

What you have installed on your system has no bearing on CPU usage unless it is being run. The CPU spikes may be due to a corrupted driver for some peripheral in your system. If so, that will be corrected when you reinstall drivers after XP Professional is installed. When you receive the new operating system you can format your C:\ partition during the installation. That process will remove all traces of your current operatin system (and everything else) from the C:\ partition. As the prior answer indicated you can run FDISK then FORMAT using a boot floppy diskette to format the partition but the format process is exactly the same as what you would use from within the XP installation and is simply a waste of your time.

Denny,

Thanks for the info.  That's more than Dell Technical Support has given me in 2 weeks.

Anyway, I'm not convinced that the Windows Install Format completely erases everything; I chose "complete format" before re-installing XP, and there were still files on my HD from the previous install.  Anyway, how do get FDISK?

 

Thanks for your help

Also, sorry to DP, but how can I tell if something's corrupted?

 

Thanks

Anyway, I'm not convinced that the Windows Install Format completely erases everything; I chose "complete format" before re-installing XP, and there were still files on my HD from the previous install. Anyway, how do get FDISK?

The only reason that happens is that you did not set the CD-ROM drive as the first boot device in BIOS and attempted to isntall Windows from within Windows, which if the XP CD autostarts it offers to do for you. The proper procedure for installing Windows is here. FDISK is available on boot floppy disks.

No dude, I did tell it to boot from CD.  I hit f12, then said "use CDRW drive" and went from there.

Anyway, where do I get the boot floppy disk?

http://www.bootdisk.com