Dos

[Grandiosevision]

I am relatively new to win xp. I can access the dos prompt but I don't know how to reboot into dos. I just need to know how to reboot to dos. I don't have a floppy drive, just a cd burner.

 

[SFR]

I believe if you restart your computer and press F8.. it will bring up a list where you can select safe mode at command prompt. It isnt like WIN 9X... DOS is not behind the scenes in XP.

 

[Grandiosevision]

thanks

Thanks sfr, I've got that all taken care of. However, I'm trying to reformat my hard drive and I still get the same error message. I don't know what it means exactly. Maybe I have to end some of the running processes in the background first. First I type "format C:", Hit "Enter", then I get this:

Format cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Format may run if this volume is dismounted first. ALL OPEN HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID. Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (y/n)

I tried clicking yes and I then get this:

Cannot lock the drive. The volume is still in use.

 

[SirJay]

The reason you are getting the error " Cannot lock the drive. The volume is still in use." is because you are running DOS when Windows is running.

Are you wanting to format your hard drive? It is NOT recommended to format your only hard drive especially while running Windows. If you had some restore cds, it would probably go easier that way.

 

[fachim]

If you run in Windows environtment better use all of it feature and utilities like format, scandisk, and more. otherwise it will crash. You cant format the harddisk/partition that your Windows OS placed and still running.