How to Format Your Computer With Windows XP

1. Backup. Just to be on the safe side in case you find that you have made a mistake of forgot to save something, you should always backup your data before formatting or wiping your disk clean. You can either copy your data files on to a CD or a flash drive or another hard drive.
2. Restart. Shut down your computer and hit the appropriate key to go into your BIOS. A message will appear as the computer starts up telling you which key to hit to enter the BIOS (sometimes called Setup). Once in the BIOS, you need to go through the different sections until you find one that says something like 'boot device order'. Once in this menu use the appropriate labeled keys to select CD-ROM as the first boot device. Exit the BIOS and be sure to select save. If your computer does not restart, please restart it again with your Windows XP CD in the CD drive.
3. Start the setup. After Windows starts up it will display a message that says 'press any key to boot from CD', press any key. Windows will start to load files and then will take you to a screen that asks you to install Windows or repair; press the 'Enter' key. Press the 'F8' key to accept the licensing agreement. If a Windows installation is detected it will prompt you to repair, just press the 'Esc' key. Select the existing partition and press 'D' to delete the partition. You may have to press 'Enter' and then 'L' to confirm that you want to delete the partition. The screen will then list the open partitions to create a new partition. Hit the 'C' key to create a new partition where the previous one existed. The setup will ask you to pick a size for the new partition, it will automatically list the largest possible size. Hit 'Enter' to accept this size. On the next screen, Windows will ask which partition you want to install Windows on. Pick the partition you just created. The next screen will offer several options to Format the partition. Select one of the options and hit 'Enter'.
4. Install or restart. After the partition is formatted, you can install Windows again or you can turn off the computer and remove the CD. Your computer is now formatted. Go back to your BIOS and change the boot up order to hard drive first.