Re: dos

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: : I have a NEC powermate vl260, the win xp sp2, : : came preinstalled, I would like to format the C : : drive, but I am worried about the bios settings : : and the winxp sp2.thanks : ## : Note first that the hard disk, ("drive c:", where your Windows XP is installed and your data files are stored), and the "BIOS" are two completely separate hardware components inside your computer. : -- : FORMAT : Formatting prepares a hard disk (or other storage medium) for use, including setting up a completely *-empty-* file system. : In other words, when you "format c:", ***-ALL-*** data on your drive C: will be lost. : A corrupted Operating System can be reverted to a clean state by formatting the disk and then reinstalling the OS, but, this is a drastic way to combat a software problem or malware (malicious software) infection. Obviously, your important files should be backed up (copied to another storage device) beforehand. : -- : BIOS : Formatting drive C:, (or any other drive), will NOT alter your BIOS. The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) in an IBM PC class machine is contained in a battery-backed CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) chip on the motherboard. : The primary function of the BIOS is to identify and initialize basic system component hardware such as video, disks, keyboard etc. when a PC is first powered on. This prepares the machine into a known low capability state, so that other software programs stored on various storage media (such as a hard drive) can be loaded, executed, and then given control of the PC. This process is known as booting or booting up, (short for "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps"). : In other words, this BIOS firmware code contained in the CMOS chip must always work, even if no drives have yet to be installed. : -- : Oh, and by the way, the computer alone does NOT know how to install an Operating System, nor does it have any of the needed Operating System files. So, in order to install an Operating System (such as Windows XP) on an empty (formatted) disk requires a bootable Operating System disk (CD). If you don't have one and you go ahead and "format c:" anyway, you have just created a completely useless 'brick'. And, it will remain in this state until someone gets and boots the computer from an Operating System disk. : -- : If you would like more help, I highly recommend VirtualDr (free): http://discussions.virtualdr.com : SpywareDr (Doc)