PC FORMATTING

[lmpye]

where can i find help on formatting my PC

[moonacre]

What sort of help do you need?

[coemgen]

Just type formatt in google.

[lmpye]

I am trying to restart my PC from the windows CD and all I keep getting is the 'c: prompt'. I have tried changing my bootup disk in BIOS but this doesn't seem to work.

[moonacre]

Oh dear. Did this suddenly happen? There are so many things that could cause this from the effects of certain viruses to corrupted files. If you think there is any chance of the former then you really should reformat and hope that this allows you to reload windows (there is a chance that a key file on your hard disk has been corrupted in which case it is rather more complicated). However let's look on the bright side and try a couple of things first before doing something as dramatic as a reformat - and loosing all your data. It's odd and worrying that you can't boot from the windows CD, however here is a chance that your PATH is incorrect. To test this enter the following two commands, pressing the Enter key afer each: CD\WINDOWS then WIN If that gets the machine booted up and running then the cause of the problem is a bad PATH command in the autoexec.bat file. Use Start - Run - MSCONFIG and go to the AUTOEXEC.BAT tab. Look for any lines with the word PATH (or SET PATH) at the beginning and click on the checkmarks to clear them. That will correct the startup problem. If this doesn't work then there are a few more things to try.

[lmpye]

Thanks 'moonacre' I shall try what you've suggested. I was actually trying to reformat the PC( which I hadn't bothered) and the actual re-formatting completed without any problem. But then it wouldn't boot up from the windows disk.

[moonacre]

Ah. In that case forget what I said. If you've already formatted your PC then there won't be any operating system files on the disk yet. I guess what you are trying to do is reload Windows? Trouble is for some reason you can't boot from the Windows CD (this is only possible in W98 and XP - you have one of these I presume?). It's hard to diagnose remotely why this won't work- if you've ensured that the bios is set for CD to be tried for boot . Can you navigate to your CD drive from the C prompt? To do this type D:\ and press enter (assuming your CD drive is D). If so then you should be able to run setup on the CD by typing setup.exe at the D prompt (I think this should start the installation - not a way I've had to try!). If you can't navigate to the CD drive then you may need to load the CD drivers first. To be posting this stuff you must have access to another PC. Use this other PC to make a floppy boot disk by going to control panel/add remove prog/startup disk. You should then be able to boot from this floppy and access your CD drive. It should then autoplay when the Windows CD is inserted and begin the installation.

[djwattsy]

being a novice i need to know the full procedure, what to save where to save it and how to actually re-formatt