Like I said, or alluded to, you can't do it in Windows! How can you format in Windows, which of course would WIPE Windows? Sounds like you're trying to format a drive while IN Windows, because any other way, it doesn't care what you have on the HD. It will just ask if you are sure you want to overwrite the OS.
I mean the CD that came with the HD. If it was OEM, then go to the manufacturer's website and download the installation software. I don't know if you mean driver upgrades or Windows upgrades. If the latter, I've expressed that many times regarding how bad Windows updates can screw-up a computer. I found one of my emails on it and pasted it below. As a habit you should check the Windows Update site on a regular basis, but DO NOT INSTALL WHAT IT TELLS YOU TO INSTALL! I can't find my numerous emails I've posted on this before at other lists, but suffice to say you not only DO NOT NEED the majority of patches and updates they put at their website, but many of them can and will cause serious problems with your system. Unfortunately now, there is no other way to see what you need unless you subscribe to update notification emails. This is what I recommend. That way the update site will not be able to scan your HD and feed all the info on it back to M$. If you must go to the update site, BE SURE you have as many services disabled as possible and blocked by your firewall. When the site is through and tells you what you need, immediately block all internet access with your firewall so it cannot continue to "probe" your computer. Then read, copy and paste the entire page (right click is disabled so you'll have to do a "control C" after highlighting, then paste into a Notepad and read). You can go Google and type in each of the updates #'s and find the info on them you need. Or you can enabled net access again and click ALL of the "read more" links below each listed update. You will find out in many cases under "mitigating factors" for each update that you don't even need it. The majority of these updates are not needed if you run a firewall. Most of them are to patch up the countless holes and buffer problems in XP of which firewalls will protect against in most cases (it will tell you this under the FAQ's or "mitigating factors"), and also many of them are not even needed if you have other patches installed! The update site leaves this out, and it's left up to YOU to figure that out. Check to see which ones CAN be UNinstalled. If you find out you POSITIVELY need one that cannot be removed, BE SURE to always set the "system restore" so you can fix what the patch may screw up, and some WILL screw things up bad and slow a computer down. This is why you ONLY want the updates you find are absolutely necessary. It's not a good idea to get what you positively need from the update site, but it's ok to d'load them from another M$ site, I'd just avoid getting the downloads from the update site itself, for one; like I said it really probes your PC, and another is you'll have the physical downloads you can save from that point on to a CD for when you reformat or if you have to reinstall them, or install on other PC's, etc. I have no idea why your PC won't accept drivers without the details on that. I thought you already tried to reinstall Windows over Windows. Sometimes that works fine, sometimes it doesn't, and still sometimes it can mess things up. There are many factors involved in that. If one is having several problems, it's usually faster to just reformat instead of trying to get drivers reinstalled the correct way and fix other problems. -Clint God Bless Clint Hamilton, Owner http://OrpheusComputing.com ) ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Grossman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Dear Ed, Jeff, Clint, and Jorge, Thank you for very much for your assistance. Ed, the MS link was very informative indeed. However, it only relates to drives that do not have XP system files. Jeff, I installed the Windows updates, but it did not bring my drivers back. Clint, I tried to install the drivers from the motherboard CD that came with the computer. When that failed, I downloaded drivers for the sound card and tried to install them. It refuses to accept the drivers. Clint, were you able to reformat C: while it had system files? XP won't allow me to do that. What do you mean by the HD's CD (as opposed to the XP CD)? Jorge, you recommended "do not mess with the upgrades unless you really need each and every one" - do you mean that the fact that I downloaded all those upgrades (45 MB worth!) from MS may have been the cause of the computer's not accepting the drivers? If that is the case, Jorge, then can I simply try to re-copy Windows from the original disk, over the existing system (supposedly to repair damaged files) and hope that the computer will then accept the drivers? Again, thank you all for your coaching. David Grossman ============= PCWorks Mailing List ================= Don't see your post? Check our posting guidelines & make sure you've followed proper posting procedures, http://pcworkers.com/rules.htm Contact list owner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Unsubscribing and other changes: http://pcworkers.com =====================================================
