format and reinstall on a laptop with no Floppy drive

I am trying to format my laptops harddrive and reinstall
xp unfortunatly I have no floppy drive on this laptop and
can't figure out how to do the format part. When I boot
to safemode and try to format from the xp cd it says that
it has to dismount the harddrive but then is unable. Any
solutions would be helpful.

John

You boot from winxp cd and proceed with clean install process, no need for
floppy

"John Kelsey" wrote in message
...
I am trying to format my laptops harddrive and reinstall
xp unfortunatly I have no floppy drive on this laptop and
can't figure out how to do the format part. When I boot
to safemode and try to format from the xp cd it says that
it has to dismount the harddrive but then is unable. Any
solutions would be helpful.

John

Make sure your cd drive is ahead of the hard drive in the boot order in bios.
You must see "Press any key to boot from cd" to verify you are booting to the
cd. Complete directions:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase...p_sg_clean.asp

"DL" wrote:

You boot from winxp cd and proceed with clean install process, no need for
floppy

"John Kelsey" wrote in message
...
I am trying to format my laptops harddrive and reinstall
xp unfortunatly I have no floppy drive on this laptop and
can't figure out how to do the format part. When I boot
to safemode and try to format from the xp cd it says that
it has to dismount the harddrive but then is unable. Any
solutions would be helpful.

John

John Kelsey wrote:
I am trying to format my laptops harddrive and reinstall
xp unfortunatly I have no floppy drive on this laptop and
can't figure out how to do the format part. When I boot
to safemode and try to format from the xp cd it says that
it has to dismount the harddrive but then is unable. Any
solutions would be helpful.

John


Boot diskettes are a thing of the past, as all legitimate WinXP
installation CDs are already bootable.

Simply boot from the WinXP installation CD. You'll be offered the
opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part of the
installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the order of boot
devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)

HOW TO Install Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default...B;en-us;316941

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm

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In ,
John Kelsey typed:

I am trying to format my laptops harddrive and reinstall
xp unfortunatly I have no floppy drive on this laptop and
can't figure out how to do the format part. When I boot
to safemode and try to format from the xp cd it says that
it has to dismount the harddrive but then is unable. Any
solutions would be helpful.


You can't format the Windows drive from within Windows, since
that would leave Windows without a leg to stand on.



No floppy drive is needed. Just boot from the Windows XP CD
(change the BIOS boot order if necessary to accomplish this) and
follow the prompts for a clean installation (delete the existing
partition by pressing "D" when prompted, then create a new one).



You can find detailed instructions he
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html



However why do you want to do this? In my view, it's almost
always a mistake. With a modicum of care, it should never be
necessary to reinstall Windows (XP or any other version). I've
run Windows 3.0, 3.1, WFWG 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows
2000, and Windows XP, each for the period of time before the next
version came out, and each on two machines here. I never
reinstalled any of them, and I have never had anything more than
an occasional minor problem.



It's my belief that this mistaken notion stems from the technical
support people at many of the larger OEMs. Their solution to
almost any problem they don't quickly know the answer to is
"reformat and reinstall." That's the perfect solution for them.
It gets you off the phone quickly, it almost always works, and it
doesn't require them to do any real troubleshooting (a skill that
most of them obviously don't possess in any great degree).



But it leaves you with all the work and all the problems. You
have to restore all your data backups, you have to reinstall all
your programs, you have to reinstall all the Windows and
application updates,you have to locate and install all the needed
drivers for your system, you have to recustomize Windows and all
your apps to work the way you're comfortable with.



Besides all those things being time-consuming and troublesome,
you may have trouble with some of them: can you find all your
application CDs? Can you find all the needed installation codes?
Do you have data backups to restore? Do you even remember all the
customizations and tweaks you may have installed to make
everything work the way you like?



Occasionally there are problems that are so difficult to solve
that Windows should be reinstalled cleanly. But they are few and
far between; reinstallation should not be a substitute for
troubleshooting; it should be a last resort, to be done only
after all other attempts at troubleshooting by a qualified person
have failed.



If you have problems, post them here, it's likely that someone
can help you and a reinstallation won't be required.


--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

John Kelsey wrote:

I am trying to format my laptops harddrive and reinstall
xp unfortunatly I have no floppy drive on this laptop and
can't figure out how to do the format part. When I boot
to safemode and try to format from the xp cd it says that
it has to dismount the harddrive but then is unable.

You need to be able to boot the XP CD direct. That involves setting the
machine's BIOS to boot from CD before HD. See the manual; it would be
an extremely rare machine that cannot boot a CD. Then boot the XP CD
direct. Enter Setup, and after the license agreement take New Install.
When it asks you to confirm where, hit ESC; select and delete the
current partition and make a new RAW one to be formatted at the next
stage

The important point is the delete. Without that it will just go ahead
and make a new install over the top of the old one


--
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8 bit)