Problems formatting main hdd & partition help.

[skotbites]

hi this is my 1st post do go easy on me, i have windows xp home and am trying to do a fresh install as i have discovered various viruses and trojan horses which have caused me probs. Also been having other pc probs so i thought the time was right to start again. All my important files are on my other hdd.

I have tried to boot directly from the cd as that seems to be the general concensus on here, but why i try to delete the partition on my main drive it says unable to do as some set up files are on there.

Also as i'm a newbie, what is a partion and what to they do?

when i installed my new drive i just chose 1 partition.

Cheers

 

[PeterGriff]

Firstly, unplug your data drive so that you dont accidently do something to it. Its not a bad idea to look at the sizes of your drives before you start, so you can identify each drive by its size.

Then boot from your CD-ROM. Choose to install windows. It will ask what partition (a partition is just a section of your hard drive - e.g. you can have one physical hard drive split into two partitions which will appear a C drive and D drive in Windows or DOS).
Select the C drive partition (it should be first in the list, and it will probably be the only one there)
Choose to format the partition if you want to erase the current setup
Follow the prompts from there

Peter G