Why can't I reformat?

[MikeA]

I have an old 400 MHz IBM Aptiva with 192 MB RAM and an 8 GB HD. It also has a DVD/CD ROM and a separate CD-RW. A couple of years ago I upgraded from Win 98 to XP Pro. I got all the updates along the way and the System page now says that I'm running XP SP2.
I've been trying to reformat the HD for the last 3 nights and I cannot get the machine to boot from the CD. I have changed the boot sequence in the BIOS to be CD first but it wouldn't boot from either drive. I finally went in and disconnected the DVD/CD ROM and left only the CD-RW connected. (I did this because the machine was built in '98 and I was thinking that maybe a CD drive that old wouldn't be capable of booting. I thought I'd read where older drives weren't set up to boot from. The CD-RW was added around the same time I upgraded the OS.)
I finally just tried reinstalling XP and I get a message that says that the OS that is on the machine is newer than the one I'm trying to install and it can't install it. Do I need to uninstall all the updates and get the OS that is on there now back to the same level as what my CD is? I don't know what else to do. Thanks for the help guys. I just found this site last night and it looks like a very helpful one.

Mike

[bailey]

is there any good reason why you feel that you need to reformat ?

you could do a repaire and not lose anything.

[GaryRouth]

Like bailey, I'm also curious why you want to reformat.

It sounds like you solved the boot-from-cd puzzle (by unplugging the DVD/CD combo drive) otherwise you wouldn't have gotten far enough to have XP SP2 complain about older versions.

If for whatever reason you still want to reformat your entire drive and start over again from scratch - you have the option of using the diagnostic tools available from the manufacturer of your hard drive's website (Data LifeGuard for Western Digitals, Powermax for Maxtors, etc). These usually have an option to zero-write the drive. This will completely wipe all data - back to the shiny clean, just from the factory blank. Then there will be no XP SP2 to bother your installation anymore. [But you'll end up being nagged to install SP2 all over again!] Ah, the Catch-22 of it all. . . . And you'll probably have to re-activate XP.

The repair option bailey mentions is probably more practical - it will make use of the newer file versions from SP2, and you don't have to re-invent the wheel. (no need to re-activate, either)

If it's more space your after, remember that you can always shrink the amount of space that System Restore uses [check in "Help and Support" for the details - it's all in there].
. . . Gary

[P.S. ... just noticed that this is your first post here = Welcome to the PC Mechanic forums! ]

[MikeA]

Thanks for the replies guys, yeah, I'm basically trying to get some more space back that I lost after my kids installed all kinds of games (including The SIMS) on the machine. I've got about 2.6 GB of the 8 gig hard drive available and I really don't have too much else installed on there now other than a full installation of Office and MS Money. I've also got Zone Alarm, Spybot & Ad-Aware on it along with McAfee Virus Scan.
That is the other reason that I'm wanting to reformat. Virus Scan has apparently been hi-jacked. It won't start up and I can't even open the console to check my definition version/date. So I figured that a reformat was in order. I appreciate all the advice.
I've got some other questions but I'm going to start a new thread.