Compaq presario V3000 formatting problem

[Quique]

I have a Compaq V3000 laptop which is installed with Windows XP operating system on it. The laptop is giving some problems and hence I want to format the hard drive of the laptop but I am not able to format the hard drive of the computer. Whenever I select the format option, the system prompts a message saying "Formatting will erase all the data" and then quits itself. I am not a computer savvy and hence I cannot figure out what is causing such problem. Therefore if anybody else if facing similar Compaq presario V3000 formatting problem, then please share some information which might help me in solving the issue.

[Wiro]

It is very easy to format the hard drive of the computer. If the partition of the hard drive which is to be formatted does not contain Windows operating system then right click on the drive and select format. Now the system will give a Window which gives different options for formatting. Select the format of the drive in which you want it to be from FAT32 or NTFS options. Select Quick format and then click on start. Now the formatting of the drive will start. Let the procedure complete. Before starting the formatting procedure, you will have to take the back up of all the required data as formatting will delete all the data on the drive.

[Deep23]

The other way of formatting the hard drive of the computer, is to boot the system from the installation disk of the operating system. If you have the installation disk of the operating system which you are using then insert it in the drive and boot the system from the disk. Let the installer load and copy all the required drivers. Now the installer will give 3 options as follows :-

• To install XP press Enter
• To repair press R
• To quit press F3

Press Enter and then select the drive which you want to format. The format procedure will start and after completion the system will be restarted.

[Quique]

As suggested I inserted the Windows installation disk in the drive and booted the system from the drive. After loading of the installer, I pressed enter to Select the option of installing Windows operating system but after selecting the option, the system gave me an error message saying "No hard drive is installed". This is not possible because the system is working fine and only has one hard drive. So if anybody can explain me why I am facing such errors while installation of Windows, it would be really helpful.

[Regina]

Probably the BIOS must not have detected the hard drive due to which the installer is prompting about the missing hard drive. Before booting the system from the installation disk, go to BIOS setup of the computer. Go to hardware peripherals and then see if the hard drive is detected or not. You can also hit enter on the Manual Detect option in the hard drive tab. If the hard drive is still not detected then you will have to reset the CMOS. To reset the CMOS, you will have to change the jumper settings on the motherboard of the laptop. Refer the user manual of the laptop to know the exact procedure of performing CMOS reset and follow it. After CMOS reset, see if the hard drive is detected or not.

[Barclay]

Check the Windows installation disk which you are using as I suspect that the disk is corrupt and hence you are facing such problems. Normally the Windows installation disk contains all the drivers which are required to detect the basic peripherals of the computer. These drivers are copied on the hard drive of the computer when the installer is loading. If the drivers are missing on the disk then it wont be copied on the hard drive and hence the hard drive will not be detected. Therefore try using some other installation disk and see if the hard drive is detected.