windows xp no longer uses dos in its boot disc so the old dos commands dont work.
in order to format your C: drive you will need to use your windows xp cd rom and boot from that.
put the xp cd in your cd drive then reboot, your pc should give you the option to boot from cd rom,. if it doesnt either the BIOS is set to ignore the cd drive on boot or the cd is damaged.
once you boot from cd (after changing the bios if needed)
windows will give you several options, navigate your way thru the menus until you come to the hard drive. (I would give you exact step by step instructions but dont currently run xp)
in order to format the drive you will need to deleate it and create another in its place, make sure you select the right drive to delete.
once the drive is blank , select it as the drive to set windows up on and windows will format the drive for you in the type of your choice (fat 32 or ntfs) then carry on and install windows.
if you want to install a diferent operating systen you can exit at this point.
WARNING If you intend to install an earlyer version of windows (98 me or 2k) your system WILL hang up on install for a very very long time while the differences in allocation tables between the versions are sorted out. if you do intend on using 98 or me, i recomend reformating c using a boot floppy set up for the os you want to use, as its a lot less scary than looking at a frozen screen for an hour.
NOTE: any of the above instructions are followed at your own risk, by doing this you will be erasing your operating system and everything else on drive c: .
I recomend using the xp cd to format c even if you are going to install 98/me because 98/me boot floppys cannot read NTFS drives, so therefore shows the first FAT32 drive as C: no matter where the partition/hard drive is located or what its was named within xp
****comming soon - this post as a how 2*****
