format pc

[banksy]

i need a step by step guide to formatting my pc.
i have two drives - 1 is 80gig the other is only 6gig. windows xp is installed on the 6 gig drive.
i want to start afresh & make the 80gig drive the master with win xp on it.
i last did something like this about 3 yrs ago & i remember using a win98 boot(floppy) disc.
all help will be appreciated - remember - i`m no expert !
cheers, banksy.

[Chewy]

if we persue this I'll need to move this to general computing

been a while since I covered this topic

what kind of xp disk do you have? sp? and you do have your numbers handy?

[banksy]

thanks chewy,
windows xp sp1 - i have the numbers.

[Chewy]

I would make sure the 80 gig is ready to be formatted? the data on it is backed up somewhere else.

the best option is to partition the drive into a system and a data partition

I would use 30 gigs for system at most, and 50 for data

google partitioning, the windows xp disk will do it for you if you set your bios to boot to the cd, make sure the 80 gig drive is jumpered right and the other drive is not even connected

there are lots of guides but none of them can answer all your questions the first time you do this, plan on a few mistakes