There is not enough information to give a well thought out answer. A 
couple of thoughts on the issue are:

The hard drive could have a hidden partition on it established by the 
computer supplier (Dell, HP, etc.) and you are not reformatting the 
entire drive. You might try an "fdisk" to create one active partition 
before formatting the hard drive.

The OS installation disk that came with the computer could have a 
modified installation (including the registry) by the supplier to 
accommodate programs it normally installs on new computers. Also, it 
might require a hidden partition.

If you built the computer with a new hard drive and are using a 
Microsoft OS installation disk, ignore the foregoing.

Tom Mayer

[log in to unmask] wrote:
> In reading this note from Al, reminded me of when I was looking at  my 
> Registry yesterday and noticed I still had McAfee, Norton's and some other  firewall 
> mess still in there, although I have formatted my HD.  I would  like to know 
> if ALL stuff stays in there such as what Al mentioned before, and  what good 
> does it do to format if it's still hanging in there?
>  
>
>   

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