"Anthony P. Gardner" wrote in message
...
Does know how to format a hard drive from DOS?
I have a dell computer using windows 2000 and novel OS. Unfortunately, I
don,t have to password. I want to erase the hard drive so I can install
windows XP. Can anyone help? I will be forever grateful.

Plan "A"
Go to Motherboard bios settings ( usually press Delete OR F2 key during
boot), Set the first boot disk as CD1 in the bios settings, save changes,
then boot from XP CD.
Plan "B"
If "A" doesn't work then go back to bios and set first boot disk as floppy,
save changes, then boot with a win98 boot disk ( Or Win2000 or whatever you
have, even a DOS boot disk). From the A:\ prompt type fdisk and press
enter. once in fdisk choose option 3 to delete all partitions. once
partitions deleted, switch off and go back to plan A.
Win XP will detect the drive and want to format the drive itself.
Best of Luck,
Pete

Does know how to format a hard drive from DOS?
I have a dell computer using windows 2000 and novel OS. Unfortunately, I
don,t have to password. I want to erase the hard drive so I can install
windows XP. Can anyone help? I will be forever grateful.

You should be able to boot on a bootable floppy and run fdisk to erase the
partition table. Then set the boot device to the CD drive & proceed with
the XP install.

WT

"Anthony P. Gardner" wrote in message
...
Does know how to format a hard drive from DOS?
I have a dell computer using windows 2000 and novel OS. Unfortunately, I
don,t have to password. I want to erase the hard drive so I can install
windows XP. Can anyone help? I will be forever grateful.

First, make absolutely sure that you do not have a drive overlay set up. An
overlay is a program that allows an older computer to use all the available
disk drive space. Generally, if you have a modern computer (Pentium 4 or
Athlon XP), you do not need drive overlay software.

Restart the computer entirely in DOS mode using a bootable floppy disk with the
FDISK program included in it.

Select the option to delete the primary partition on the hard drive. Follow
all instructions. This is assuming your hard drive does not have any extended
partitions, which home computers normally don't. If your drive has any
extended partitions, those must be deleted first before deleting the primary
partition.

After you are done, reboot the computer.

As indicated, set the BIOS to boot from a CD and use the Windows XP
installation CD to boot the computer up.

Windows XP setup will detect the hard disk and find that it does not have a
partition. Choose all recommended options and Windows XP will partition and
format the drive with the NTFS file system automatically. - Reinhart

Note: Make sure your FDISK is a recent enough version to be able to
deal with large partitions!

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"Sam Goldwasser" wrote in message
...
Note: Make sure your FDISK is a recent enough version to be able to
deal with large partitions!


The Windows 98 CD has a recent version of Fdisk on it, and it's bootable
too. I use it to do just what the original poster is looking for.