[gwak]

is reinstalling the OS the same as reformatting the hard drive? Probably not.

I would like to reformat my HD and start over fresh. I've got a lot of crap and mp3 files on my HD and a lot of the files are fragmented and my sys performance is just going down hill.

Sorry for the noob questions.

[intercodes]

You can reformat using a bootdisk using the "fdisk" command.
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/install/fdisk.htm

or you can connect your HDD as slave to someother computer and use a partition manager software [Partition Magic or some other software ]

**If the connected system has windows XP, then the 'disk managent' option can be used to partition your hard drive.

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Intercodes

[Elbatrop1]

If you're using WinXP you can boot off of the WinXP CD. You can choose to Reinstall Windows. When you go to reinstall windows, you can partition and format your drive and then reinstall. This can all be done from the CD.

[TheMajor]

You cannot format an NTFS partition with FDISK. You can delete them though.

The easiest way is to use the XP install disc and format with that. (it will give u an option before install begins)