RE-installed windows XP on my laptop using a new HDD. formatted the new HDD with no partitions. Very old XP installation disc but installation went ok, but due to the age of the disc I had lots of issues to deal with. One issue was the Disk letters. The HDD was showing a drive letter E:) instead of of C)
plus there was a removeable drive on screen with the Drive letter C:) This drive is actually non exsistent and I think it appeared because the old pc mobo had a CD only, while the laptop mobo has a DVD-RW. (correct letter D:) on this) Anyway basically the OS worked fine and gave me a good learning process with lots of issues to resolve. Finally I went into the registry to correct the disk letters. Changed the primary drive from E to C. Checked the procedure several time after each step then exited. Whoops, forgot to change the non exsistent removeable drive letter from C:) to F. Result even when I try to reinstall windows, it boots up fine, loads the files and then tries to install them on the “removeable disc drive E)” It does not crash, it goes through the memory building process and then the screen comes up with a dark blue background with a lighter blue panel on top and the windowsXP logo. No access to start or cmd or anything else. Solution is to reformat the drive but I cant do this without a windows OS. Is there a utility that I could use to format the drive during boot before windows kicks in. Could I change anything in the bios that would help, I got into cmd once via the recovery page on the bios but did not know enough cmd language to be effective. Its obviously not even possible to use another laptop because as soon as the HDD goes into operation the same thing will happen. I am currently using my desktop pc. Any suggestions would be gratefully received. thank you.