Member Avatar for Diello

Hi.
First of all I just want t say that I do not know a lot about PC's.
Lately I bought my brothers "old" PC (2005). I want to format it, but have huge problems.
My main question is: Is there any way to format the PC from the BIOS-menu?
If not I guess I'm in trouble. I have tried to run a boot-CD (spotmau powersuite and microsoft XP) but the CD wont run. I have changed the settings in BIOS to check the CD-player at boot, but still nothing happens.
Also after doing things I probably shouldnt have done (cause I dont know enough about it) the Start-menu is gone, I can not run Task Manager, nor does using Ctrl+Alt+Del work anymore. And the worst thing is that I can't run any .exe files. If I try, I get an errormessage (with no number) saying "The programme couldnt start cause of a fault with the programe configuration. Try to re-install the programme" (translated from norwegian)

So back to my main question- I really just want to format the harddisk and start over again. Is it possible to do this without running a CD or using .exe files?

In advance- thanx for all help.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by cguan_77

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Member Avatar for Arcnazgul

There are a few things you could try easiest would probably be throwing in a spare cd drive (if you have one) and try booting from that and if that fails you could always try formating from dos.

Member Avatar for Diello

I don't have a spare CD-drive, but how do I format from DOS? (I mean, I don't even know how to enter DOS...)

Member Avatar for cguan_77

hi diello,

you know how to get into the BIOS, configure the boot sequence options, to boot to cd where you're xp installer is placed, if the cd rom drive and installer is ok, everything will go smoothly. Assuming your drive and installer is ok, when you already set the configuration on the BIOS and the XP installer is on the drive,then upon system startup you'll receive a message "Press any key to boot from CD" just press a key then XP installer will try to load files to your Hard disk for the installation. Just follow the instruction on the screen to complete the process, if you need any help just post again..

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