I'm about to re-install WinXP on my wife's Dell. I see in the "knowledge base" articles at Dell mention of a "Dell Clean 1K" utility, but it's not well described. Does this erase the FAT on the HD? It's formatted NTFS. If I'm reading this right, only the 1K is removed, which effectively removes all data (sounds like a FAT erase, although I don't know if NTFS uses a FAT).Thanks for any ideas on how to best proceed. (I'd be willing to experiment on my own system and play around to find out, but the wife's- there'll be no simmin' done until I'm finished, I just know that :) ).Thanks,Bruce.

Bruce,Visit http://www.xmission.com/~comphope/jargon/hdd.htm , go to FAT or NTFS and read about the different allocation methods. It is the way your harddrive keeps track of what is stored on your harddrive. Win98 needs FAT32 (could use FAT16 but it wastes more space). WinXP can use FAT32 or NTFS.I don't know what "Dell Clean 1K" is and Dell will not let you access their support site without an account and password, I can't get information to help you.

Thanks for your reply.The process involves booting to DOS in a CD provided from Dell with utilities, etc. Once in DOS, the command is cdhddutilcleanThanks for the link and info.Bruce.