my hard drive says it has bad sectors on it, and Internet Explorer keeps crashing on me. I have tried running scan disk, but apparently I have something like 5, 013, 000 sectors on my hard drive and scan disk will take forever to check my hard drive (C Drive). I have thought about reformatting my computer with Windows XP (I have Windows 98 @ the moment). Does anyone know of someone who can reformat / reinstall Windows XP? Any help / advice much appreciated

As long as you have the windows CD and don't have anything on the computer you need you can do it yourself. You might need a new hard drive though, running scandisk is going to be quicker than formatting and reinstalling everything, your best to run it and do a full surface scan and just leave it over night and see if it works. If it's still probem then you would need to do a full (not quick) format which you will get the option to do when you start to reinstall windows.
First thing is to go into the Bios / setup (usually del from first power on) and change the boot sequence so the cd-rom is before the hard drive. Then save and exit. When the computer reboots it will ask if you want to boot from CD if you have the windows cd-rom in the drive, it will take a few mins loading windows install files then ask if you want to repair windows or install a new one. press enter to set up a new install, 'd' to delete the current partition and follow the on screeen prompts. Hope thats some help, PM if you need more info.

thanks for that. It all seems a bit confusing though. I don't have a windows cd, so that may be a problem. As I am back at university next week, I need something doing quick. Does anyone know of a PC technician or someone who does house calls and has a windows CD?

Before formatting your hard drive you should take the opportunity to back up all important files and folders. As soon as you reformat your hard drive ALL data on that drive or partition will be destroyed.

1/ Before you can format your drive from the Windows XP CD you must ensure that your pc is able to boot directly from the CD - (this is changed in the BIOS - you will need to find out how to do this on your machine - is usually tells you on screen during boot up)

2/ Insert the XP CD into your CD-ROM and reboot your machine.

3/When the Welcome to Setup screen appears press Enter

4/The next screen will show the license agreement. To accept press F8

5/Setup will now scan your drive for existing copies of Windows.

6/ If another copy of Windows is found you will be given two options

a) Repair

b) Install New Copy

7/ You need to install a New Copy so press ESC

8/ The next Window will show a list of all current drives and partitions.

9/ Select the C: drive for your installation to be installed to and press Enter

10/ The next window will show the format options. These are:

Format the partition by using the NTFS file system (quick)

Format the partition by using the FAT32 file system (quick)

Format the partition by using the NTFS file system

Format the partition by using the FAT32 file system

Leave the current file system intact (No Changes)

The FAT32 file system is not available if your hard drive or selected partition is larger than 32GB

11/ Select the file system you want to use and press Enter

12/ Your hard drive/partition will now begin to format

13/ After formatting has been completed Windows XP will continue to install on your hard drive.

hope this helps

Originally posted by neeeeeeeeeek

First thing is to go into the Bios / setup (usually del from first power on)

Or F2.

Alex

Or F2.
Or about 20 other key press combinations if you want to be anal about it!