Hard Drive Format?

Question

OK it's been a while since I've done this so just trying to make sure I've got it right.

My Dell XPS laptop's performance has been sluggish. I'm running XP and have the OEM CD plus my drivers CD. I want to reformat my hard drive and reinstall XP. My question is how I reformat the HD. Do I simply boot XP, shell out to the C:\ and type "format c:"? Then reboot with the Win XP CD in the drive and install XP?

If I missed something let me know.

BTW. I tried to just reinstall windows. When I got to the partition part it would not let me format the drive. There was a 8meg FAT section, a 39meg NTSF section, and a 77gig NTSF section. The Fat and small NTSF sections could not be deleted or used for XP install since they were so small. The large NTSF partitian could not be deleted or reformated since it told me that is where the Win XP was installed. So I would like to just reformat and start over but wasn't clear on how to do that.

Answer 1

Your OEM CD should have options on whether to Repair or reinstall windows. Should also give options on creating and formatting partitions where you can do this.

Answer 2

Ok your talking about the old school way. That was for Win 98 and below buddy. Ok this is how you start.
1. Back Up all important info
2. Restart the system as soon as computer starts POST; i.e. As soon as you see the start screen hit F2 to enter bios then go to boot order and change the first boot device to CD ROM or DVD in the name allocated to that drive. You wont find it saying DVD drive or nething ok just by Device name. Save and Exit
3. The computer will now restart again, just pop in your Windows disk into the optical drive and wait, right after POST it will ask to boot from CD with a time delay, just hit any key to do so..
4. It will take some time before you interfere again, 1st will be the license agreement press F8 and agree and then it will come to Hard Disk partitioning utility where you can follow the instructions and partition your disk, Before these steps all start your computer may ask to REPAIR you existing copy DO NOT REPAIR. Just follow the screen to exit that and then you will find the partition utility. If you don decide to partition then windows will ask if you wish to overwrite the current copy just say yes and then it will ask to format, Select format type as NTFS and NOT NTFS quick.
5. The rest will go smooth untill it will reboot again to complete setup, But this time don boot from CD. Just ignore the Boot from CD screen.
6. After setup is complete, Go back to step 2 and change the BIOS first boot disk to your Hard Disk and Save and Exit