Possible For Me To Format Now????

ok i got xp home upgrade.
98 se upgrade
and a reinstall cd for windows me.

right now i am running windows xp home and wondering how do i format!!

well, if you already have the OS installed, just go into "My Computer" and right click on the drive you want to format. Then select format.

says something like windows cannot format this drive because other things are running.

do i need do close all processes by hitting ctrl alt delete.

or what should i leave running?

you can't format over the operating system while the OS is running. :rolleyes:

What OS are you wanting to install? Get to a dos prompt and type format c: (or substitute c with whatever drive your formtting) Make sure you back up anything important to you.

ok running xp home?

its upgrade so in window s98 se its upgrade.


so when i format will xp home isntall???

oh yea i did that and it says what is the label i said c.

then i proceed to format but before it does it says this format cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Format may be run if this volume is dismounted first. ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID.
would you like to force a dismount on this volume y/n??


what do i end or do?


but if i format how will i install xp home if its the upgrade version>>>

went into safe mode with command prompt on still got the same error.

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to do since you say you already have XP Home installed, but if you want to reformat, boot into the command prompt by pressing f8 before your computer loads the OS and selecting command prompt. When there, type in "format c:" or whatever your drive is. It should say, "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS" and you say yes. It should then format the drive, and when you're done, it will say, what volume label do you want. Press enter for none. That should do it. Restart your computer with the XP Home CD in your CDROM and have your boot options set to "boot from CDROM" first. That should do the trick.

You need to be at a proper DOS prompt. You can't format from a Windows DOS prompt. I would use a 98SE boot disk to get to a command prompt with CD support. Then format the drive, and stick the XP install CD in. Then just follow the instructions, at some point it will ask you to put in your win 98 CD to prove you have one.

if your windows me install cd is full version then you can probably boot from the cd. go into the bios and set first boot device to CD-ROM and then save. then you should boot using the cd and select ms-dos. once you finish booting w/ ms-dos then

format c:
y
y