If anyone can help i will appreciate it. Well my computer is slowly getting slower and i cant make it stay up for more then 30 min without getting a blue screen of death. So i decide i will format and install windows xp while im at it. But when formating i run into a problem. After it hits 9% it stops and checks for some error or somthing, i wait then it just says format terminated. I did this about 5 times and it all ends up the same. My computer wont let me format my drive C. I am also doing this because it also wont let me detect new hardware that i install. I am trying to install a firewire card but it wont detect it, but it detects it fine on my other pc. If anyone has a solution please post and help me out. Thanks

Try doing a scan disk on the drive
To detect errors and bad sectors
Then try doing a format thru dos
And try installing. A Suggestion.

If it stops at 9% I would suggest the drive has bad sectors that format will not overcome.
Check the drive manufacturers website for any diagnostic utilities to test that drive.

At Start-up entered the Bios by pressing a special key combination (DEL, ESC, CTRL-ESC, or CTRL-ALT-ESC)

In the Bios Set First Boot device to CD-Rom

Insert your Windows XP CD Save and Exit the Bios, the system will now boot of the Windows XP CD-Rom and reboot. Your computer should automatically detect the CD, and a message "Press any key to boot CD" will be displayed. Press SPACE bar to continue.

The installer will copy the preliminary setup files to your computer. After
this completes you'll be ready to start directing the install process.

You will be asked if you want to perform a new installation, repair an
existing installation, or quit. In this case, you will be performing a new install.

Press key to perform a new installation.

You will be prompted to read and accept the End User License
Agreement. Press F8 to continue.

Next, you will be prompted to choose a partition to install to.

You will have the opportunity to create and/or delete partitions or just allocate the available disk space to one partition.

Choose delete partitions and create one partition

Choose to format the partition to either FAT32 or NTFS. You'll also see two additional choices to perform a quick format of each option, but we recommend doing a full format of either option instead. After you've determined which option is right for you, press the correct key to format the partition.

The format process will take awhile.

When the Format process is completed, then Setup will begin. ***Note

If you are clean, installing using an XP Upgrade CD you will be asked for a qualifying product at this point.

Just pop the CD for your older version of Windows into the drive while the XP setup completes an authenticity check. Following this you will be prompted for the XP CD and setup will continue.

After Setup is complete, the computer will restart.

Leave the XP CD in the drive but this time DO NOT press any key when the message it "Press any key to boot CD" is displayed In 5 seconds setup will continue.

Or

Go here http://www.bootdisk.com and Download a bootdisk

At a command prompt, type fdisk use the Start-up disk
Delete primary partition
Delete Primary DOS partition, Select 1 to delete primary partition
or
Delete partition or Logical DOS Drive
Delete Logical DOS Drive(s) in the Extended DOS partition, select each
drive letter to delete.

Restart your computer with the floppy disk type fdisk

select the Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive menu option, and then press ENTER Press 1 to select the Create Primary DOS Partition menu option, and then press ENTER After you press ENTER, you receive the following message:

Do you wish to use the maximum available size for primary DOS partition?
Press Y for the FAT32 file system and you want all of the space on the hard disk to be assigned to drive C, press Y, and then press ENTER.

Press ESC, and then press ESC to quit the Fdisk tool and return to a command prompt, type a:\ prompt type format c:

Restart your computer with the floppy disk still inserted with CD-ROM support," you should now be able to access your CD- ROM. Insert your Windows Xp CD-ROM. To access your CD, type in cd d: (assuming d: is your CD-ROM drive). Then type in setup.exe to begin setting up Windows

Run fdisk. It should tell you if you're HD has any bad sectors on it.