Did you remember to create a new partition after you deleted the old C partition?  You can't format until you have done that.

 

Yes. I can get to the point where it begins formatting the space. If I choose the "quick" option it stops at 20% completed and if I choose the standard option it remains at 0%.

 

First thing to try is to start over; delete the partition you created and create a partition again.  The format program is not seeing something back from the drive that it expects.  If you continue to have the problem, use the drivers and utilities disk and run the diagnostic on the drive.

Most of the Win XP operating system can be located anywhere on a partition, but the initial boot sectors are fixed as the bios will not otherwise find them.  If there is a problem in this area I don't think the drive is usable as a boot drive.

 

Are you formatting Fat32 or NTFS?

Lauren577,

Can you boot to the point where you can access the Dell diagnostics by pressing F12? If so run the diagnostics on the hard disk. It sounds like it is failing/has failed.

Yes, I can run the diagnostics. I ran the overall quick test of everything and that came back that everything is working properly....

I am formatting NTFS