Greetings, all! I'm back!

Just got my new HP ZT3000 laptop, and like a good little geek, I'm ready to format the hard drive and re-install everything MY way.

Unfortunately, I'm not enough of a geek to know how to do this...

My Windows XP disk boots up on its own, but since I don't have a floppy drive, I don't know how to format the HD first.

Anyone know the answer to this riddle?

Thanks!

Hmmm....I think you may have a little trouble....200/XP does NOT run "inside" DOS like previous versions...so you can't easily just type in >format C: and be done with it (Windows won't delete itself....against  the Prime Directive and all).

What you can try and do, with a hardcopy of XP not a "restore" disk, is boot up to the CD, begin a new installation and click on "R" to start Recovery Console" instead of a strraight install...you should then be able to run  some DOS commands.

If that fails (haven't done it in a while) just try a fresh install....it will detect the previous version and will ask if you want to repair it (different from Recovery Console) or install new....DO NOT bothertto archive the old files at the prompt since you want to start totally fresh.

Hope this helps.

Wow...

What about all the other crap on the HD? HP loaded this thing up and stuck it all in the wrong places. Just delete it all (or uninstall) and start over?

Boot into the XP disc (if you can) then let everything run until you get to the option of repairing/installing, etc. Highlight your partition that XP is on and select the key to delete the partition. Afterwards, select the key to create a new partition for XP and install on that. Before XP installs, it will format automatically.

OK...... Here goes!

No floppy needed to load XP...  All XP disk's are boot disks (even "upgrade" disks)

Turn on computer.
Enter BIOS
Set boot sequence to CD-ROM first, then HDD
Place XP CD into drive.
Restart computer.
Follow on-screen instructions on how to delete existing partitions, create a new one and format it.
Follow on-screen instructions on how to install Windows XP.

All done!

PHEW! Glad it worked!

Thanks!

Quoted: Set boot sequence to CD-ROM first, then HDD

Where do you set XP to look at the CD-ROM first?

Quoted: All done! PHEW! Glad it worked! Thanks!

Get the ~50 critical patches installed quick and get the antivirus going too! F'ing worms, I'd like to burn alive the bastards who write them!

Quoted: Quoted: Set boot sequence to CD-ROM first, then HDD Where do you set XP to look at the CD-ROM first?

In the BIOS!!!

Quoted: Quoted: Set boot sequence to CD-ROM first, then HDD Where do you set XP to look at the CD-ROM first?

As I said: Enter the BIOS. Turn on computer. Watch screen. It should say something along the lines of "To enter setup, press this key". Press this key.