I messed this up....

[Ferrari308guy]

OK, you guys are sort of loosing me here

[SubZer0]

use this and wipe it clean  ;)

http://www.dban.org/

[T1MT1M]

Well there is subzero's way which i have never used or theres the very simple windows vista way (I know dosen't sound believeable right?). all you need to do is put your windows vista cd in and boot off it (it should just come up with a screen on startup

TO BOOT OFF CD PRESS ENTER
If it dosent come up and does your restarting thing on ya press F12 at startup and choose your cd drive press enter when it says to boot off cd.
wait for it to go into the "Install now" screen.

If you give me 20 mins i will get my cd out and can write down the exact steps.

[T1MT1M]

Just before we begin a partition is a part of a hard drive. If you have one partition then your hard drive is whole. but if you have two then that means your hard drive is split in two (not necesserily halves). This decreases performance and you should only have one.

OK here are step by step Instructions.

1. Put your vista disc in the drive
2. restart your PC and as it loads up tap F12 (where you would usually go into bios or the screen with your motherboard logo on it)
3. select CD-ROM
4. press enter until you see the screen "Windows is loading files
5. get a frosty beer while you wait
6. select your language settings
7. next
8. Install now
9. Put your product key in
10. next
11. next
12. Custom (advanced)
13. click "drive options (advanced)" (at the bottom)
14. Go over all partitions and delete them all (make sure there are no periferaly plugged in eg. external hard drives, pen drives.)
15. with ALL unallocated space click on NEW
16. not sure if it gives you the option here but select FORMAT instead of QUICK FORMAT on the screen that may or may not come up. if it doesn't don't worry.
17.When the partition is created click on it
18.Click next
19.Let it install (pretty simple from here)

[Ferrari308guy]

Many many thanks for the step by step instructions  ;D . I will go do this and report back on how it turned out.

[Ferrari308guy]

Your instructions worked. I wiped the hard drive, and the install completed with no issues. I am now in the process of re-installing all of my software. Many thanks for your help

Ferrari

[Ferrari308guy]

OK...more issues...it looks like this one might be Vista.

I logged on a few times to install programs, and then I restarted after I installed some more programs. One time on the restart, my computer just shut down on me just after I logged on, while it was still starting various programs. I tried it again, and the computer shut down at exactly the same time, just a few seconds after the login.

Any ideas anybody? The programs I installed were normal, Photoshop and things like that, I was about to try to install FSX, but that's when the issue came up. I'm trying some Google searches.

Ferrari

[SubZer0]

I've never even used DBAN myself but I do know it works very well

I just take the XP cd and delete the partitions to completely wipe the HDDs  ;D

[Ferrari308guy]

Regarding the shutting down issue..

I waited a few minutes, unplugged my printer cord, and then started the computer, and I managed to get on and start installing more things.

I have a feeling that either my printer was the culprit, or this is a cooling issue. If it is a cooling issue, I don't know why it would always shut off at the exact same time though...so I'm still thinking.

Ferrari

[Ferrari308guy]

It appears cooling was the issue....
My CPU fan was resistant to sitting down all the way on the processor. After much swearing and cursing...I finally got it to sit down right...and the random shut-downs stopped. I hope this computer is finally working  ;). Better keep my mouth shut though before something else happens  :-X

[T1MT1M]

glad things worked out for you.