Can you format hard drive with windows restore??

no, you can't format HDD using system restore, you can just restore it from its previous state as far as I knew....and yes you can download an OS, make sure it is from a legitimate site and of course you have to buy it........true that you can get OS from a peer to peer/file sharing program but it is illegal........I am not sure if microsoft still have free trial for one of their OS, but try to check it at microsoft.com

Yes during most OS installs you have the option to partition and format the drive. But the manufacture of the harddrive aslo provides such utilites. The best is an All in One called the ultimate boot disk:

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

If you want to wipe the drive of all data try Dariks boot and nuke

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Oh system restore.. if you have the exact flavor of OS your running like XP retail, XP OEM, XP home OEM, and so on..

follow the prompts , skip the first option to repair, then when it detects a previous Windows install you can select repair there.

If you are wanting to format a hard drive i would create a bootable floppy to get to the 16 bit command promted. Then I would put your Windows XP CD in and type d:\format.exe where d: is the cd rom drive.

As to the part about the CD Image. You can create an Image of the OS but you can not work from it. Using third party software like Ghost you can create a image. If you want to travel you Hard drive try using a USB Key Hard Drive

you need to download the DOS (disk operating System) files from Microsoft web site, click on support click on downloads look for dos 6.2 that is if it is still on the download list... if not try to get hold of a windows 98 boot disk, that as all the file commands on it for what you need

No, Sytem rstore is a Roll back, settings program. This just restores your computer, to an earlier saved date.

http://www.investmental.com/