F10 Reformat not working

Well hello again! lol. Well I have tried NUMEROUS times to reformat my pc. It is a hewlett-packard with windows xp home edition already installed on it, did not come with a CD. I have tried I think about 6 times to use the F10 command. I have done this before many times on this PC and had it worked. Well recently my computer has been acting slow, so I wanted to reformat my computer again. I would press F10 and it will take me to system recovery, I do the DAMAGING one so it whipes everything, but it wont do anything. It goes through the 10 or so minutes of copying files/reformatting, but when it tells me to restart the pc, nothing has happened. I don't know what is going on. I also had recently installed a new drive to my computer and I dont think I have done any system restore yet with the new drive. Could my new drive be screwing it up? Thanks any help will be appreciated.

PS. I have another computer that is a Dell that came with a windows xp install disc. Could I use this install disc (has dell logo on it though) to reformat pc and what not?

 

OOOHHH it only did it to my F drive and not my default C drive, how do I configure this?

 

i'd bet the new drive install has some affect here ... when u 'do the damaging one' ... what drives are listed? i'd think that there's an option here to choose u'r target drive. u just need to figure out the proper one here.

i'd check the HP web site and/or u'r system docs on 'how to' restore and then remember to augment any drive lists to include the new one here. or disconnect the 'new' drive and reinstall it after u sys_restore.

 

Ahh it doesnt let me choose a target drive, when you mean disconnect take it out of computer by opening my computer, or is there an alternative way like uninstalling it?

 

I believe you need to remove the new slave drive. When using the restore option on proprietary computers from the restore partition you need to return them to their original state. Make sure to unplug any add-on external devices like printers, scanners and etc. also.

 

You only need to unplug the cables ro the drive to remove it from the system. Leave it in the case.