Reformatting C: Drive and starting with a clean HDD

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

I am working on a friends PC. It's a reasonably new Dell Dimension, P4, 2Ghz
256Mb RAM, 80Gb HDD.

Somewhere she's picked up a virus AND is getting loads of pop-ups. Norton
AV is picking up some of them but not all. Plus the PC is running painfully
slow.

In the past (Win 95/ME) I've simply burned any documents/photos onto CD,
gone to the DOS prompt and reformatted the Crive. This has removed
everything (virus included) and allowed me to reload the programs etc. and
return to normality.

I've tried to do this in XP Home but can't get a DOS prompt. I also
reloaded XP but all programs and the Virus is still there.

Any help would be greatfully appreciated !!

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

It worked like a charm!! Many thanks

"tnphayes" wrote:

> I am working on a friends PC. It's a reasonably new Dell Dimension, P4, 2Ghz
> 256Mb RAM, 80Gb HDD.
>
> Somewhere she's picked up a virus AND is getting loads of pop-ups. Norton
> AV is picking up some of them but not all. Plus the PC is running painfully
> slow.
>
> In the past (Win 95/ME) I've simply burned any documents/photos onto CD,
> gone to the DOS prompt and reformatted the Crive. This has removed
> everything (virus included) and allowed me to reload the programs etc. and
> return to normality.
>
> I've tried to do this in XP Home but can't get a DOS prompt. I also
> reloaded XP but all programs and the Virus is still there.
>
> Any help would be greatfully appreciated !!
>
>