WinXP - How do I?

I have tons of problems on WinXP2, getting errors like crazy, internet explorer just shuts off, games freezing. I recently downloaded a game called Ghostbusters and cannot uninstall, due to Installation Wizard being interrupted.

I was told by my neighbor (who happens to be a computer programmer for a industry, kinda like an IT) told me to format my Hard Drive to start from scratch. Sounds like a no brainer, but I have WinXP preinstalled on my system with a secondary HD for system recovery stuff.

If I go to command prompt and type in: Format C: . That will eliminate everything I have on C: drive, including windows and do not have a backup CD or system recovery CD and have looked everywhere online for steps to do it. I have tried de-frag, system cleanup, ccleanup, and chkdsk. Still have errors.

Any help?

i would get a copy of xp from somewhere, make sure you take a copy of your CD key if it isnt printed on your case, backup your important stuff if you have any. then proceed to wipe the hard drive. sometimes if your machine has too many problems its not worth fixing, however if you want to tackle the issues, list them in detail and im sure we can have a stab

while i need to format my hdd to get rid of Windows' crap, try upgrading by putting service pack 3 on - thats the most logical explanation

To do a backup all u do is copy important files to a DVD/Seperate harddisk, like an external. Also you can't format your drive while in windows, because windows is running from it how did u not kno that? its obvious. anyway get a mac, my 400mhz is better than my 2.8(3.2) P4. fix it but i find mac's are better in my day to day tasks, the modern G5(i have a g4) G5s can run windows games, granted youuse macports to get darwine. Mac's also are a lot more stable and quicker I find, a 2.8GHz dual core iMac starts and loads the desktop in under 20 seconds! My mac g4 has always been reliable and whenever i do my job (audio editing and mix making) on my mac, it does it quickly so i have more time to relax and can forget about deadlines

Hi there.

Is this a commersial for MACs?


Well to counterpoint, a lot of what i can do with a PC, i can't do with a mac.

And the problem with the PC isn't the PC hardware it's microsoft.

macports is free iirc, but to argue a point i missed before, osx was MADE to run on mac hardware, microsoft have to deal with a wider range of hardware configurations. and i think my current laptop running windows 7 runs just as good as a lower powered macbook running osx, its all personal feeling tbh, theres not really a way to bench osx and windows in the same tests (that i know of at least) where as direct cpu/gpu/memory tests will always be biased to the one which is more powerful, regardless of OS

Well I formatted my HDD and tried to put XP on. The disc wouldn't work and ended up putting 7 on. 7 is worse than what XP was running at before It also corrupted my backup of 4YEARS worth of pics that I was restoring

John Dowe- No I don't work for Apple or an advertising agency, so why would I advertise macs? TBH, I was saying what I used my machines for if anything

Have you tried updating to XP Service Pack 3?

well i got a new XP CD slipstreamed with SP3. It's a lot faster now that I took off Windows 7 RC and put on XP SP3 again. Ahhhhh the joy of not corrupting backups when copying them

u cant format drive having windows

and use origional copy of windows and update it time to time

Or you could do what I used to do. Do a repair install of Windows XP so you keep your files on a fresh copy of Windows Don't get confused with the recovery console though. Boot the CD, press the key for install, highlight your XP installation and press the key for repair. Saying that you should try my XP mod. Me and my friend who are doing it call it Windows Manhattan

WTF are you blathering about?

You can format a Windows HDD/Partition from the installation disc. Nearly everyone knows that. How do you think you install windows on an unformatted HDD? Windows even has a basic partitioning program called fdisk! Wow! What a breakthrough since the fdisk and format utility has been around since Windows 1!!! Maybe even earlier! DOS1!