How do I format my hard drive? All my important files and documents are backed-up on my external HD. I need to reformat my C Hard drive, but cant figure out how. I have the restore disks I received when I purchased my computer, but am lost. Any help is much appreciated, thanks, Robert!

So I have tried to figure this out myself by going to http://www.ehow.com/how_6026_format-hard-drive.html

The only problem is, when I right click on my C drive in the computer management window, I cannot click on "format" or "delete partition" They are in grey and I cannot click them. What do I do?

Its me again. I tried putting the restore disk in during my reboot, and I hit the key to restore windows, however I cannot go any further. Two error messages pop up, one after the other, telling me I have these two files that cannot be deleted. These files are:
R:\T4510.GHO
GHOSTERR.TXT

The first one is similar to the model of my computer, an Emachines T4510. These error messages pop up inside of a symantec window. I have no software from symantec, I downloaded a free trial versian of Norton anti-virus once, but I thought I deleted it. Whats wrong?

It's greyed out of course, because you can't erase the operating system you're using.

Why don't you try booting from the recovery disk, and at the DOS prompt enter
If that fails, then either your partition table is corrupt or your hard disk is shot.

So when I put the disk in and reboot, it says press 1 to format (which I cant) or to press 2 to go to the command promp.
I pressed two and typed what you said, "format c:" and hit enter, nothing. it said it was an ivalid command or something.

I go to start, accessories, and click COMMAND PROMP
Only there is a slight problem, an error window pops up saying it is in use by another program! Maybe this could be my problem?!?!

Try putting the OS install disc in, I'm pretty sure (though not positive) it gives you the option of a reformat.

is your machine a dell?

my dells "recovery cd" is in fact not a recovery cd but calls a symantec program on a hidden partition and restores my system from that.

Yep, that's right.
Hmm, depends what directory you're working in, and what commands are available. Try running DIR to list the contents of the current directory, and use CD D:\directory\here to change the working directory.

If there's no Format command on the disk, then you'll have to find another disk.

That won't work of course, because you're trying to erase the operating system you're using to do the erasing. Like I said previously, you need another operating system to erase the disk, even if it's only plain old DOS.

Just a question; what recovery disk are you using? Perhaps the best thing to do would be to dig out your Windows installation disk, and use that to format your hard drive using the aforementioned techniques.

I use a windows 98 boot disk, then at the command prompt type fdisk. option 3, option 4, Then option 1 and option 1 again.