Formatting c drive

[mopar chick]

I've been following the instructions from this site for building a pc. I am on 'Prepare the Hard Drive' but when I try to format the c: drive, it just keeps saying 'Invalid or bad Command' or something to that effect. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Thank you in advance.
MJ

[james8547]

Is this a new build (no data on the HD)? If so, just place the OS cd in the cd drive, and make sure that the boot priority is set to the CD drive. Windows will walk you thru on how to partition, format, and install the OS.

[mopar chick]

Okay, thank you so much! I'm going to go try it now.
MJ

[mopar chick]

It still wouldn't boot. Yeah, it is a new build, OEM version of XP, and the 'puter just said that it was an invalid media type.
MJ

[james8547]

Is the BIOS detecting the HD? Make sure that the HD is connected as Master (connected by a black plug as opposed to a gray one).

EDIT:
How about the jumper on the HD?

[mopar chick]

It is connected as master and the BIOS is detecting it. This is the first glitch I've run into with it, so far.
MJ

[bailey]

you need to run fdisk first to creat a dos partition

[Blakhart]

If you have a xp cd, and it boots, why not let xp do it all for you?

[glc]

1. If the hard drive is a Western Digital, and it's the only drive on the cable, you have to remove the jumper. The "master" position is only used when there is a slave drive present. It's much preferred to use 80 wire cables and Cable Select jumpering. Blue connector to motherboard, black to master, gray to slave.

2. Set the BIOS to boot from the CD first, put the XP cd in, and Setup will partition and format the drive for you. No longer is it necessary to manually partition and format a hard drive before installing Windows, that article was written for Windows 98.

[mopar chick]

It's working now, thank you so much.
MJ