My sister is giving away her old computer. The data is non-sensitive, however she'd rather give it away empty. The computer is disconnected from the internet, does not have a CD drive anymore and runs Windows XP.
Is there a way to format the system drive regardless (all I found was that it requires the installation disk of XP, which is quite a hassle)?
Why can't I restart in plain old DOS and do a plain old format c: /u?
Best Answer
You can do it using USB flash drive.. Two way possible with it:
1st, you can can create a bootable USB flash disc, but it would be tricky i guess.
I'd rather the 2nd way which is copying the windows setup files to a flash disc using another computer, then install recovery console to target pc using flash disc. After that boot to recovery console and format from there...
Check out http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307654/en