ok, you have no idea how pissed off i am at microsoft. here's microsoft: "Win 95 and 98, u get an option to restart in MSDOS mode." windows xp comes along and yoink, "LET's NOT give them that option, what a GREAT IDEA!" seriously why would u take out something like that, to make it extremely hard to access such a vital part of the computer system? now that THAT is out of my system...

I want to start my WIN XP computer in MSDOS mode because it has a bunch of *censored* on it and i want to reformat. i have a new copy of windows xp home and when i tried booting from the windows CD it takes me into setup then says "setup cannot find a hard disk..." that is retarted... i don't have a floppy DRIVE in my dell 3 GHz 512 ram 80 gig HD and want to just start it in dos so i can do "format c:" and be done.

thanksThis doesn't work because Windows is not something that runs on top of DOS like the non-NT versions (95, 98, etc.) but is an operating that has a command prompt (not DOS) window available.

On no computer can you boot to the C drive and format itself. THat has to be from ANOTHER device, not involved in the format. In your case a real Windows CD is able to do that.

It sounds like you did not get that, so you have to do the reinstall with whaever medium (hidden partition, restore CD) the manufacturer PROVIDED. Formatting i susually part of that process.

Do you have a SATA drive? If so, you need to install the drivers for it to load XP. If not you have other issues (not Windows) that need to be addressed.thanks for the help, u mentioned drivers for my HD. I went and couldn't find any new drivers.
then i went into the BIOS again and went to the hard disk section where it was booting up something weird, so i changed it to find an ATA hard disk.

i ran windows xp CD and voila, it worked.

i'm happy now GLAD you are all fixed up. This section of the Forum needs to be re-named from MS-DOS to "Command Prompt"...True. MS-DOS doesn't seem to ever enter into the equation.