How do i format my hard drive?i have tried to format already but get this message.?

• format cant run because the volume is in use by another process.format may run if this volume is dismounted 1st.all opened handles to this volume would then be invalid.would you like to force a dismount (y/n) .type yes then get the following message.cannot lock the drive .the volume is still in use.please help b4 i throw this bit of junk from the window.i cant install sp2 so need to format

• Answer:

  i think you are trying to format while still booted up with Windows OS. You would need to boot up your system using XP cd or a bootable floppy and then format the system. first off, more likely than not, you're computer's BIOS has already been set to boot from a cd before anything, so just pop in the disc that you think is the Windows XP recovery disc and restart you're computer. You should get some kind of prompt or message indicating that it is booting from the cd. if it just boots striaght into windows like it would normally then either you have the wrong disc or the BIOS is set to boot from the hard drive first(C: Drive). If it was the wrong disc then just swap them for the correct one and restart again If it is because you're BIOS is set to boot from the C: Drive first, than you have to get into your BIOS Setup screen. This can be accomplished by hitting the correct key(s) at the initial boot up screen, which should appear on that boot up screen. and then there should be a listing somewhere in the BIOS setup called "boot sequence" or something like that. Under that you can change the computer to boot from cd first. With XP it should be pretty easy. Just bootup the pc and put in the CD. It'll load. It should prompt you to format if the hard drive is not formatted already. If it's a new hard drive choose to format it. If there is an old windows version on it already, make sure to back up all the data before formatting. Anyway, choose format. I would highly suggest formatting in the NTFS format (more security and more stable) and do a full format. It should also ask you if you want to partition your hard drive (split them into separate chunks - ex: if you have a 60 gb hard drive, you can split it into 3 parts - one for programs, one for games and one just for windows). That's optional. You can now just go on with the install. It should be pretty straight forward. Like I mentioned before, this should be easy with XP Hope this helps.