are you installing an old version of windows? like 98, or me? if so you need to point to the directory which contains the format util. for it to work. which would be like the cd rom
from a you would go
a:cd d:
d:
d:\cd win98
d:\win98 fromat c:
in me you would go to the win9x directory
d:\win9x format c:
if your installing xp, forget all of that and put your xp disk in, delete the fat32 partition you have created with the boot disk, format in ntfs and kick back and have a beer or something