Need help reformatting please!

Eighty8lx501

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I bought a new 300 gb hard drive, it got a virus, and I am trying to reformat it. I have tried changing the boot sequence to cd rom #1, then putting windows disk in with no luck, it just tries to boot up the virus windows setup. Basically, I need your instructions to reformat. Any comments would be a appreciated. Thank you!
 
With your BIOS set to boot to CDROM first and the CD in the drive, look for a prompt while booting that says "Press any key to boot to CD", then just press a key and it should boot to the Windows CD. What version of Windows are you using?
 
I need to know how to format another way, through DOS or somthing else. I have allready tryed the way you mentioned. Sorry my GF wrote the first post!
 
I need to know how to format another way, through DOS or somthing else. I have allready tryed the way you mentioned. Sorry my GF wrote the first post!


Please be more specific. Are you trying to boot with an emergency anti-virus disk? If you're using the Windows CD, then what is the "virus windows setup" that you're talking about?

If you boot with the XP disc, you should be able to access the Recovery Console and choose 'Repair' (press 'R').

Select the installation of Windows that needs repair, enter the admin password (if prompted) and then type 'fixmbr' at the prompt. You'll get some warning messages, but clearing the master boot record should not impact your data. That is, unless there's a problem with the drive itself, in which case, you're probably hosed anyway.

But I'm assuming that since you were willing to reformat the entire drive, data isn't an issue. Clearing the MBR is much less drastic than a full reformat and, if successful, would mean that you won't have to reinstall Windows.

If it works, this should allow you back into Windows so that you can take steps to remove any other viruses that may be present.
 
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