The tech idiot did it again...please help!!
 

Ok so, I have 2 puters now and 1 had xp gamers on it but froze to the point where I could do nothing. So I installed XP and being the idiot I am partitioned the old OS in. So the new one has 4GB in the hard drive and the old is eating up 76. I want to totally clean the hard drive and just start over how can I do this?

Format won't work, it won't let me just install xp again (error 5)

cmd// del*.* won't do it (or whatever that's along the lines of what my son did.

I can't F anything when it starts...

Can someone help me here? I get internet great but .....

On my other puter the power keeps going off. Usually I can just start it right up again but sometimes.. may take up to an hour or 2. It looks like it may be fried totally now? I know this is probably an obvious question, but does that sound like a bad power supply and I should just replace it OR could it have been a virus. There are absolutely no other problems on that one except for the power.

I appreciate any and all help..... thank you.

Download and burn a linux live cd. Boot, run gparted to partition your disk. Either erase both partitions and create a new,big one - or resize the original partition and expand the new partition.

Try ubuntu for the live-cd.

For your other computer my guess would be either the powersupply or the CPU getting too hot. (The thermal paste between the CPY and the heat-sink can dry out over time)
Using the live-cd can help you rule out any virus or software issues. Just use Ubuntu for a while. If everything is ok, it's a software issue. Otherwise your down to hardware.

Can you put the crapped out hard drive into the working computer, reformat it, and then switch it back to the problem pc and re-install?

Or...

Can you boot into safe mode and reformat?

Can you get into BIOS, set it to boot from CD, and reformat?

Try seatools for dos. boot from the disc and low level (quick) your drive. Only takes a couple moments and you have a nice clean disc to install to. if you're still getting an error after that, then you have hardware/disc issues.


h**p://www DOT seagate DOT com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools