Hello all this this I hope not the wrong board to post this question on
It is just probably really easy for any one like all of you who read this But All I want at the moment is to format my c drive and last time I tried I got into all sorts of horrors I had to take it to the shop and they charged me £75 to get it going again and put Windows 98 back in and charged me also for a new graphics card I know I should up grade from pentium II but I would have to alter the mother board so I was told can any on just help me in plain english Thank you very much Ant

Hi Ant Basterfield Welcome to Pc Guide.

if you have a win98 boot floppy put it in the driver and start the system, next select start with cd-rom support then when thats done you will see an "A:" prompt at this type format C:
it will warn you that if you go on all data will be lost press Y.
once this is done you need to put your copy of win98 in the rom and reboot, if it doesnt read the disk go into your BIOS (F2 or Delete) and change the first boot device to cd-rom, F10 save and exit then follow the on screen directions.
post back and let us know how it goes.

Before you start this process, it may be worthwhile to say why you feel a need to reformat and give us details about the problem. Many times people are told to reformat and start over to fix simply problems that can be solved much more easily. We are quite willing to walk you through whatever you may need to do to address the problem you are having and we will not charge you for it.

Hi And thanks for a quick reply. I thought that I would format the C drive as it become really slow to open programmes. I have another drive of 18GB but the c drive is the original one and is only 6.03GB but thats only full to the point of having about 463GB of space left on it but all the programmes take a long time to open so have I a virus ?
I have Norton sysmantic profesional in and Diskeeper 7.0 too.
Please tell me if you need to know more. Thanks again Ant

more than not it just needs a tidy up, if you only got 463mb of space left on the drive you could uninstall whats not needed and the do a defrag, or just format, formating just means you will have to put all the stuff you want back on.

There are a number of different things you can do to clean up your system and get it to run faster. If you are running an antivirus and keep it up to date, it is not likely that you have a virus. Depending on how you use the internet, you may well have picked up some spyware or even trojan programs which can slow down your system and cause all sorts of other problems. You may want to go to mjc's thread and pick up Spybot Search & Destroy, Startup List, and Hijack This to figure out what is clogging things up.

http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15179

You install and run Spybot to check for spyware and other junk that might have infested your system. It will allow you to remove them as well. Generally it is safest to remove only the things at the top that Spybot marks for you.

You run Startup List to see what is running background on your system and Hijack This to see if there are any trojans. You can post the logs in a message here and someone will be able to tell you if there are things you need to remove.

Typically Windoze installs a bunch of stuff that runs background and slows things down and really insn't needed.

A simple way to get back to a nice, clean, fast software setup is:

1. Have a system of backup in place.

2. When you “build” your software for the first time [or re-build it], make a backup of the software immediately after the build is complete and keep this backup somewhere safe.

3. Find out how to separately backup your important data files and settings such as:
a. Outlook Express: e-mails; address book. Also the individual identities’ address books.
b. Internet Explorer: favourites folder.
c. E-mail account settings & Dial-Up Network settings.
e. Important data files.

4. Lighten your C: drive as much as possible by only keeping Windows, Programmes My Documents and a few others.
Put all your data files, especially “wav” and “mp3” files elsewhere.

5. Make regular backups of the c: drive, especially before a change [of hardware or adding software].
You could also backup your other partitions but these are less critical and could perhaps be done less often.

6. Re-format your c: drive and restore a suitable backup.
Possibly the backup mentioned in 2 above.

7. Restore the settings mentioned in 3 above.

8. You’re now back to a clean system but still have all your important settings and data and you didn’t need to re-build your software to achieve this.

In step 6 above, you could just restore your latest backup to eliminate a problem.
But problems are inclined to creep into your backups unseen and if this happens you can go back to an earlier, or to the beginning [the backup of step 2].
At the moment, I have three backups of my c: drive plus the original build copy.

Excellent advice Sylvander - following this procedure can save entire weekends fiddling about with system configurations!

I use "PowerQuest Deploy Center" to create a disk image of the C: drive - so far this software has been very reliable and never let me down. By keeping the disk images on D: drive, you can format C, run Deploy Center off a floppy and restore a "clean" system very easily.

Following this method, keep C: partition to the minimum necessary to store your programs, and keep D: partition as large as possible.

But watch out for those programs which store data by default in a C:\ folder - usually you can manually change the default setting to a D: folder.

At last! At last!

Another person who finds this strategy successful!

How about a link to a website that tells more about "PowerQuest Deploy Center".

:( Thanks again all of you for the advice, I will certinly look in to the items mention I am really pleased that you all help each other, and its much apprieceated (that spelling looks suspect !)
I have found one thing that has seemed to make a difference , thats a movment of files from stored on desktop to D drive. all those now open quicker ! and they seem to open striaght away when the P.C has warmed up! Does this make any sence ? I will do the spy boot operation too !
Thank once again to you all Anthony (ps Im abit of a tecnophobe I do admit) I have Diskeeper defrag once a day too

As requested, a link to PowerQuest.

Note that "DeployCenter" is a LAN multi-user professional package(expensive). Looks like "Drive Image" is the home version - it seems to have the appropriate modules and lower cost for home use. (But I've not used this version myself - anyone else had experience with it?)

http://www.powerquest.com/driveimage/

Amazon.co.uk are currently selling DriveImage for GB £25

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000068MG2/qid=1044449318/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/202-4593637-0066237

I've used Deploy Center on both Win98SE and WinXP machines - handles NTFS no problem.

Hello all
Thanks again for the advice I think then . Whaat I do is ! Get the drive back up programme that was mentioned back up all the important stuff. Then format Cdive and report back to you all when done
Yes ?
THanks for every thing Ant Basterfield :D