How to flatten a PC?

[christy053]

Hello Having lots of problems with my PC at the moment viruses, sound problems, interent problems, update problems, software problems. You name it . . there is a problem . I have tried contacting people but all the instructions they give are just getting me into more bother and not helping out , so ive decided to give it a fresh start . There is nothing on the PC worth keeping so dont need to back up any documents etc: I want the pc to be as it was when i bought it , basically a fresh clean pc with nothing much on it How do i do this I have windows XP and have the WIndows XP home edition cd that came with it I have alredy inserted the CD and clicked on install but it does not delete anything and its all the same as it was before i installed it Please help out Missing my healthy PC CHristy x

[gobbledegeek]

If you really want to wipe the entire system, what you need to do is create a boot floppy disk, XP calls it an MS-DOS Startup Disk. XP Help will tell you how to create one.
Once you've created it, copy format.com onto it (from C:\Windows\System32) then restart your PC with the floppy disk in the drive. You can then run FORMAT x: where x is your hard disk drive letter(s). Format one drive letter at a time and do C: last. You will then be left with an empty hard drive and you can re-install XP (or the operating system of your choice) or simply trash the PC.

[rojash]

You don't need a floppy disk, or any of that palaver described above.

Just boot from the XP CD, delete all existing partitions, and do a clean install.

Before you begin, ensure that you have all the drivers for your existing hardware - especially the motherboard drivers, which should be installed immediately after XP and before installing any other drivers or programs.

[ACtheTROLL]

go with rojash

[christy053]

when you say just "boot" from the xp cd do you meet put the cd in click restart and then what becasue the pc just starts as normal
Please reply
Thanks
Christy

[rojash]

When you first turn on your PC you will see a message "Press F2 for Setup" or similar (the exact wording and the key to be pressed will vary according to the make and version of the BIOS). Press whichever key it say, and explore the menus. In one of them you will be able to set which devices are checked for bootable images, and the order in which the are checked. You need to set it so that the CD Drive is the first to be checked. With some BIOSs you also need to enable the option "Boot from other devices". Once you have done that, save the options. Put the XP CD in the drive, shut down the machine completely (leaving the CD in the drive). When you next turn the machine, it will either boot straight from the CD, or it will show a message "Press any key to boot from CD" (or words to that effect).