how do i format my HDD under windows XP on my laptop ,i only bought it today and it has a version of windows XP on but it runs out in 28 days the laptop has no floppy disk drive which is the way i have allways formatted before .tried going into dos prompt but it will not let me format ...can you please help,,daft question im sure but i am 76 and not alltogether with it thank you heidi

You cannot format the system drive via XP.

What Operating System are you going to install?

Some have their own ability to format prior to installation.

GParted is a bootable CD that formats and partitions:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

I would also verify that XP is temporary. That is very unusual. I have never heard of that. You need to activate it but you do that by just following the prompts to activate.