Please need some help with a hard disk!

geowal19 · 18 Jan 2009 at 16:39

I need to format a hard disk but only have access to the BIOS how do I do this?

jak731 · 18 Jan 2009 at 16:41

can you plug it into another pc and format it in windows on that?

Edward01 · 18 Jan 2009 at 16:49

do you have a windows boot disk handy? or an xp/vista cd?

geowal19 · 18 Jan 2009 at 16:51

I have the xp disc but thats the root of my problems i can't get windows to boot so I want to reinstall it. Is there no way of doing it in the BIOS???

Edward01 · 18 Jan 2009 at 16:54

set your DVD drive to be the primary boot device in the bios, press any key to boot from CD, format when it asks you to!!!

J.B · 18 Jan 2009 at 16:56

You can format during the reinstalling process. Put the CD in the drive and boot up, make sure the CD drive is higher than the HDD in the boot prioriety.

ChrisLX200 · 18 Jan 2009 at 17:03

As above, just let XP delete the partition and let it create a new one. You'll be starting from a blank drive - no need to partition or format, XP will do that for you.

geowal19 · 18 Jan 2009 at 17:37

That's the other problem though it won't boot from the DVD drive first even when I set both first and second drive as first boot!

gazza0371 · 18 Jan 2009 at 18:30

Try pressing F8 on boot-up. On some BIOS this can be used to select the boot device from a list of those attached - so you could try this to boot from the CD.

Also, if you do manage to do this, do you really need to re-format? You might be able to repair the current installation, especially if it is just some files that are missing.

Liquidfox · 18 Jan 2009 at 18:41

If you can't boot from a CD or floppy, then you'll need to take out the HDD and format the drive. But if you can't boot from CD or Floppy, then you won't be able to put windows back on once you've formatted the drive...

geowal19 · 19 Jan 2009 at 17:17

I tried pressing F8 and I got onto the Windows setup but it said I hadn't got any hard drives so I restarted it then I can't get onto the setup pressing F8 just takes me to a screen with options on how I would like to boot Windows.