Like a complete retard, I uninstalled an important system drive

Format disk, install Gentoo, then actually learn how to use a computer.

>>17980109

Can I format the disk without being able to boot it up though? It gets to the XP startup thing then bluescreens

>>17980086
startup in safemode, if that doesnt work get your windows recovery media disk that your manufacturer gave you / try to make one . else no hope, you can put it in as a secondary drive and try and save the shit on it tho.

>>17980132
As long as you're getting BIOS you can run a Linux distro from liveUSB and do whatever you want to your computer. You can even access your unbootable drive and transfer all your files to another drive while you install gentoo. You don't even need to boot into a gentoo disc to install gentoo. I love having a Linux Mint stick around just in case.

>>17980196

Interesting. I would love to either recover my files or get back into the PC and reinstall that file, so if either are possible with Linux via a USB drive, that would be great.

>>17980206
Absolutely. Just make sure to set USB to first in your boot order, or select it each time from the boot menu.

>>17980212
Will definitely try, thanks for the advice.

I deleted the system recovery program, would it be possible to replace it or get it back onto the PC via the USB Linux?

>>17980324
You can access the drive as long as you didn't delete the file system itself, but if you did that you could use a file recovery program like photorec. As for actually fixing the windows installation, you'll have to ask someone who can use the OS for more than 2 hours before nuking the drive and putting some Linux any Linux on it.