help! Computer installation

trying to install XP onto my machine and can't find away to re-format my C drive. Any suggestions? Cheers all, Paul

[fizzwheel]

Boot off the XP CD, then it should come up with a screen to ask you how you want to partition your disk, at that point it should give the option to remove the existing partition. Do that, then create a new partition and format it.

I think, I'm a bit hazy on this as I havent installed XP for ages...

Yup, it may describe it a little differently, but fizz is right.

Just remove all partitions & re-create. It should pretty much force you to format that way.

i've booted off the disk, but it says that there is no disk installed. There is a prompt to install 3rd party RAID drivers though

Ah, then you'll need the driver for the disks to hand (probably on CD). That depends on what RAID controller you have (I'm assuming you have RAID here).

yep, got raid. Don't know where the driver will be. Using a dell unit as a base which didn't come with a cd of drivers. There must be drivers on the vomit though

Since you swore at me, I'll swear back.. Dell.. start here...

http://support.dell.com/support/topi...n&lnki=0&s=dhs

2 problems. 1 only internet connection i have is on my N95 and there's no floppy drive to use. My drives are SATA drives, at the moment they are RAID autodetect / AHCI enabled. Shall i make them raid only?

This wouldn't be a ThinkStation would it?

XP install should be fine with AHCI, but you will need the drivers.

As for problem one, the N95 works like a flash drive doesn't it? (USB Mass storage)? Pop along to the local library, download the drivers using their computers (sign up to the library for free if you have to), and save to the N95. When you do the XP install, you'll be able to grab the drivers from the N95 using it as a flash drive again.

If it is a ThinkStation, you'll probably be wanting the Intel Matrix Storage Manager drivers.

it's a dimension 9150