[WTom]

Please help me out here, im trying to reinstall Windows XP but I want to format first. Now im on a laptop and i cant get into DOS from the load up screen as my laptop goes straight to a screen that says Compaq and then the Windows XP logon page. Ive tried the bootdisk but for some reason it wont recognize my commands. Any help is appreciated, thank you very much!

[ViprXX]

you probably need to set your bios to boot from cdrom first. you can usually get to the bios by pressing the F1 or F10 key during the compaq logo. once you get into bios look for somewhere to change the boot order, theres probably a Boot Menu tab and change it to cdrom then save and exit and it should automatically detect the windowsxp cd and say "press any key to boot to cd" and just press enter. also you don't need dos to format, unless of course you prefer it. there is an option within winxp's setup to format. either a quick format or a full format.

[JohnWill]

You can't get to DOS while booting XP because there is no DOS available. The only way to get to DOS is boot from a CD or floppy with DOS at that point. Why do you feel the need to "get to DOS"?

[WTom]

Because I need to format my computer. Ive tried the boot disk and it wouldnt take any of my commands.

[Squashman]

You format the disk during a Windows XP install. You don't have to do it before the install like you did with Win 9X.