[Alneyan]

Odd. The only message to this effect I got was "Hey, it's system files, are you sure you want to blast the partition back to Vasuda Prime?". Are you sure you don't have an option to accept? Of course, the program will ask you a second time if you are sure about deleting all your files. The installer shouldn't mind those system files; if it did, it would have some serious trouble when installed on a "barren" harddrive.

If for one reason or another (the same problem as with the auto-format?) it doesn't work, format c: is a pretty powerful spell. Power Word: Kill, that sort of powerful. You might have to boot up a Win 98 boot disk or some such to cast the spell, though; if you don't have a floppy disk, you can also burn a CD that will act as a floppy boot disk (it worked well enough when I installed Win 98 and did some fdisk/format).