Make a Windows Startup Disk. To do this, go to Control Panel | Add/Remove Programs | Startup Disk. You will need a diskette and your Windows CD.

Test the Windows Startup Disk. Make sure it will boot your computer, and will give you access to your CD-ROM drive. Test the CD drive’s functionality: A DIR (directory) command of the CD drive letter will be sufficient to confirm this. Also, make sure you can access/read your hard drive.

Make sure that all necessary utilities (including such things as FORMAT and FDISK) are on the Startup Disk.

Do a complete system backup so that you can recover your system entirely in the event of a disaster, and so that you can later recover whatever bits and pieces you will later want to retrieve.

Reboot your computer with the startup diskette.

Reformat your hard drive with the FORMAT C: command. Do any other prep stuff you want to do, such as repartitioning (with FDISK or another partitioning tool of your choice). Then run the SETUP program from the CD-ROM drive (if you didn’t notice what letter this is, just reboot from the startup diskette and watch the screen; DOS will tell you).