Reinstalling Windows XP question

[Guest spearl3047]

I am an old man and started working with computers when DOS 1.0 was the operating system. I knew how to format disk drives and reinstall operating systems; but I have had a problem since the time disks drives got bigger than 1 gig....What software are you guys using to reformat these big disk drives into one partition? Mine is 75 gigs, whoopee! I know... I have used PartitionMagic in the past with not so good results...In a nut shell, I would like to reinstall Windows XP so I can have a brand new Registry; How should I go about it??Thanks for all comments,Stuart

[wsieffert]

Hi Sturart,I always used FDisk that is part of DOS/Windows (NOT WinXP) at the command prompt to set/delete disk drive partitions. WinXP comes with a different program to partition and format the hard drive. Visit http://www.microsoft.com/learning/books/tr...c/ls/013102.asp . I believe if your computer BIOS allows you to boot from the CD, it will guide you through the process. If the BIOS doesn't then start your computer from a bootdisk or Windows then select the CD drive and select Setup.exe.If you want to have one large (75GB) partition, I recommend using NTFS vice FAT32 as your format. Visit http://www.xmission.com/~comphope/jargon/hdd.htm , search FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS. You will see that very large FAT partitions waste a lot of space due to cluster size.W. Sieffert

[Guest spearl3047]

W Sieffert,Thank you very much for responding to my query (sql aficianado). I read through the hyperlinks you left and have a good idea of what to do. Thanks again, you are a gentleman and scholar.