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How do I get the old hotmail format back?

Can't format my harddrive

  • I have a virus on my pc. It's installed a virus killer that I can't get rid of, it's also hijacked my browser which in turn means I can't access anything other than Google and my Hotmail account. In Dos it says that my hard drive is in use via another programme. That has left me with the format hard drive option using the boot from cd drive method. I go to boot from my cd drive and it asks me to press any key, i do that and it goes straight into windows again but doesn't show a install menu which in turn means i'm back to square one. I think the problem lies with my version of win xp as I've tried to install it when in windows and it says that I can't install an older versions of win xp, that's why it doesn't open a install menu when i boot from cd. Is there another way I can format my hard drive? I also can't download any bootdisks via the net as my browser only takes me to certain sites.

  • Answer:

    For sure you can boot from the cd. Restart the computer and right after restart (before windows logo) enter in BIOS (press F12 repeatedly). In BIOS you can find an option - how to boot first. You have to choose as a first option to boot from cd, not from the hard-drive. After that, save your modifications in BIOS. Restart you computer with your windows cd in. That's it.

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You can look for a hardware store, they may run a HDD clean-out. Say..PC world. Or, you may be able to download a 3rd party formatting program.

reviewalt

hrm. If you've put your windows CD in, and are getting the 'press any key to boot from CD' prompt, and yet it's still loading windows - sounds like your keyboard is not yet working at that point in the boot process. If it's a USB keyboard, that's not actually terribly uncommon. Try it with an older PS2 (round plug) keyboard.

Medium Dave

turn off pc. turn on pc. watch screen and press button to enter bios. look for startable drives. make your cd rom your first startable drive. save the changes and exit bios. pc will reboot if you have done it correctly, you will hear your cd rom moving just after rebooting. it will prompt you to press any button to load cd rom just follow rest of the instructions for installing windows. make sure you dont do quick format. format using ntfs. its more secure that fa32.

riboid

you'll need the system restore disc. Your computer won't let you reformat without it, because if you did you would not be able to set your drivers back up. When you put the disc in and turn on your computer, it will ask you if you want to boot disc upon start up (before any other programs are opened) say yes. Delete the partition, make a new one, and you're good to go!

Jared P

You are most probably NOT booting from CD. You need to find your Boot Menu, then insert disc, re-boot your pc. You should then have a black screen with a cursor at the top left hand side of the screen. It then should start the boot sequence.

ianhad

enter mrt into the run commands and scan for malware

Dave D

Use another computer to make a rescue CD. You will have to boot from the CD and let it do its thing. After it kills the viruses, then you should be able to reboot normally. Also download AVG free edition and ad-aware, put both on the CD and install them after you have rebooted normally. Run them and allow them to make sure everything is removed from the drive before you fire up your browser. In addition you might try downloading either firefox, safari or any of the other non-EI browsers that are available for free.

JW.C

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