hdd format

I want to do a clean format of a computer, it wont boot up into windows, i have no floppy to aid me so how can i format the hdd ?

Any help is appreciated

Thanks

Dave

If you have a Windows CD, your PC may be able to boot from CD-ROM. If so, you can boot with the CD and start the computer to a command prompt. From there, simply fdisk the drive and set it up.

You can type format c: from the DOS prompt. make sure you have Windows boot disk ready so you'll have access to the CDROM drive to install Windows from CDROM. Without the Windows boot disk, you will not have access to the CDROM drive because generic CDROM drivers won't be loaded... AFAIK, Windows 98 CDROM's are not bootable CD's. As for Win2k, they're bootable CD's and some NT4 CD's are bootable...

As NDC said, unless you plan on putting 2000 or later on you won't be able to boot from CD, and if you are in fact doing that just make sure you have an El Torito compatible CD-Rom drive (all newer CD-Rom drives are) and that you have the CD-Rom booting before the HDD in your bios. If not, you should 'always' have a boot disk, with cd-rom support and fdisk features on it. Keep one around.

Dave,
This might sound a bit simple,but... If you don't have a boot floppy, get one!

They come in different flavours but the W98 boot disk is most popular.

If you cant borrow one try www.bootdisk.com there are all flavours available here.

Dos5/6,W95 will let you format,fdisk etc. The W98 has large disk support and has the generic CD atapi drivers on it, allowing a reinstall from CD.[BTW Late W95 did too]

Have Fun R. http://www.sysopt.com/images/ieimages/2001/10/2.gif

and the way I read that ,,
If you don't have a floppy drive get one! they are easy to install:)

btw bootdisk.com is a great site!

Good call, surreal. Wouldn't have thought of that one this late/early.

That's really strange, I have been booting from windows 98 Cd's all these years!
Maybe I have a special disk!

SPEEDO