formatting windows XP

[greenster]

I need to format Windows XP before I defenestrate the entire system. Someone below gave me the answer but when I try it the 'format' option id not available. What do I have to do to get the option highlighted?

Cheers Greeny

[PunkDaddy]

Defenestration would be a permanent solution.

You need to set you CD ROM as the primary boot device in the BIOS. To Access the BIOS press delete before it starts up, on one of the menus in their there will be an option to set Primary Boot Device. Don't change any other settings.

After that you need to put your Windows XP disk in the CD ROM and restart your computer, I don't remember all the options while setting it up, but uif your wanting a fresh install of XP then folow the instructions for that.

Messing with your BIOS could damage your computer be careful, at your own risk and all that.

[greenster]

Thanks for that, I've tried it to no avail. This little git keeps presenting itself. My virus checker tells me it is in my registry but it disables my anti virus bfore it can catch it. Any more ideas.

p.s. I am most reassured to find that there is still someone out there who recognises the term.

Greeny

[QmunkE]

Do you mean that you cannot boot from the CD? With the XP disk in your primary CDROM (or whatever you have selected as the first boot location) a prompt should come up while the system is starting saying "Press any key to boot from CD".

If you aren't getting this far, then your system isn't trying to or able to boot from the install disk.

[greenster]

I,m probably not making myself clear here. I need to format rather than restore my disk. I have a Trojan.Startpage virus which is resisting all my efforts to remove it. I can't find anything which will remove it permanently so I suspect it is resident in the memory somewhere. This is basically a last resort before I resort to the method referred to in my question. Thanks for your interest though.

[PunkDaddy]

When you have set your CD ROM to boot, and your XP disk is in, you need to follow instructions on screen, to format the drive you need to delete your partition, you will most likely only have 1 partition, delete it and that will basically mean you drive will be treated like it has nothing on it. After that you can format your drive and re install windows.

[Ralph]

Have you tried Adware Away before you go to the ultimate solution? I used this to get rid of the about:blank homepage hijacker that nothing else would shift. It's shareware but it may solve your problems straight away, so you won't have to buy it. You can get it from http://www.adwareaway.com/
If you still want to reformat, then the other guys are putting you in the right direction. When it boots from the CD, there is an option to reformat the C (or whatever) drive before you reinstall Windows. Follow the process along and you should find it. Unless of course, your pc manufacturer only supplied a restore disc and not the full Windows CD. Your options then are to see if they'll sell you one cheap or buy one from the likes of www.novatech.co.uk who sell the OEM discs cheaper than the upgrade discs.

[greenster]

That'll be the problem then. I've only got a restore disk. Looks like it's going out of the window then.

I appreciate all your advice though.

Cheers Greeny, going offline for a while now!!!

[PunkDaddy]

"Hijack this" is a poweful tool for removing spyware, but it also finds legitimate software, so you have to be VERY careful what you get rid of. What I do is run "Hijack This" and for every result (I don't recognise) I search on google for the text after the last \ of the path: Example:

04 - Startup: BTTray.ink = C:\Program Files\Bluetooth Software\BTTray.exe

So I would search for "BTTray.exe" Generally google will find out what it is your looking for and from looking at a couple of the links you can decide whether it's malicious or not.

This can be a time consuming process depending how much you know about your computer and how many things Hijack This finds. But it is worth doing.