am i able to reformat a drive via bios ? if not how can i reformat a compressed HDD that has a OS on it ?
Should be able to delete the partition from the W7 DVD, if not use an XP dvd, delete the partition and create a new partition and format it.
You can do it in Windows 7. It will ask you where you want to install it and then you can go to Tools or whatever on the right hand side of the screen and format that partition.
ok i know this may sound stupid but with the xp disk how to i reformat ? cuz iv reinstalled w7 and it didnt work at all i didnt havea reformat option
Allow it to boot to the XP cd, once it gets to the EULA press f8 to except and the next screen should bring you to drive options, read the menus carefully because they make you press certain keys so you do not accidentally format or delete a partition. Or use FDISK on a dos boot floppy or CD, use fdisk to delete a non dos partition.
Boot the computer with the XP CD in the drive and allow setup to begin. When you come to the screen where you select the drive partition you should see the drive listed with all the space listed as unpartitioned. If the drive was in use previously, you'll need to delete all the existing partitions. To do this you'll have to hit the 'D' key followed by the 'L' key. The screen instructions will be visible to guide the process. Once all the existing partitions are deleted the display will show the total unpartitioned disk space. Hit the 'C' key to create a partition. If you only want one partition then hit enter and the entire disk space will be allocated to the C Drive, but it will be NTFS, assuming the drive is 32GB or larger. However, if you want to create several FAT32 partitions then do not hit the Enter key. Instead, hit 'Backspace' until the cursor moves to the first digit. Enter the size of the first partition to be created. Repeat the create partition process as many times as you want till all available space is allocated to partitions. Once all the partitions have been created, use the 'Up' arrow key to select the C drive partition to install XP on and select to format it with FAT32 if you are sure that NTFS isn't a viable file system in your situation. After XP has been installed and is running, navigate to Disk Management and format the other partitions with either FAT32 or NTFS. This step is necessary before the partitions will be available for use. Since this is a clean install and the drive has to be formatted, it only makes sense to use the tools that are available in XP without having to bother with a floppy diskette.