I need to format to make sure I kill all those bloody viruses and spyware. I'm running XP. i go to command prompt and type "formate c:" and then hit "y" for yes.

But then it says I can;t do it because something "is still using the load"
Load of what?

How do I get around this problem?

 

You really need to boot off of a separate media in order to reformat your hard-drive. For example, if you have a "recovery floppy", you can boot off of that and then reformat your hard disk. Or you can boot off of a Win/XP installation CD and reformat your hard disk as part of the installation process. If nothing else, get yourself a DOS, Win/95, or Win/98 boot floppy and just do "fdisk" to delete all the disk partitions on the hard disk. Then when you install Win/XP again, it will detect that your hard disk is not partitioned and format it for you. Good luck.

 

Thank you!

 

yea...you can try bootdisk.com ...if you have XP pro/home just download the setup disks...its 6 floppies if you are going with this process...

 

I believe the XP CD-ROM itself is bootable also. You can do a fresh OS install and tell it to reformat in the process.

 

Forgot to add: If you go the "fdisk" route, don't forget to do "fdisk /mbr" to re-install the Master Boot Record, just in case a boot-sector virus is hiding there.

 

Save your important files first!

 

I agree. Why not run a recovery and a virus scanner?

 

why not just ship the pc to me and I'll charge you about $50 an hour to look at/fix it