Reformat 'C' Drive

[Bigfellah]

Having difficulty reformatting 'C' Drive. Been advised to reformat with OS CD in CD Drive. So have gone to My Computer, right click 'C' Drive, click 'Format', Window pops up saying 'unable to format' - no reason, no help suggestion!

Any one able to help please?

[peanut]

You can not format the disk containing windows from the same disk you are trying to format. In other words, windows can not format the disk windows is on. Think about it, if you are erasing windows it cannot format and erase its self at the same time. You need to use a utility from a bootable cd or floppy to do your format. That way windows is not running and the disk can be formatted.

[vehelpfulguy]

During the install of Windows one option is to format the hard drives.

So you put the Windows CD in, "boot" from the CD, begin the install process, then when you get asked do you want to format say "yes".

Aftet the format you can then cancel or end the Windows install.

Why do you want to do this, are you trying to sell the PC and you are clearing the drive, or are you going to put another operating system on it?

You realise you will lose EVERTHING off the C drive (personal files and so on)