Bad Cmd in A:/ on start up diskette

 :-/ hello, im haveing trouble formatting my computer when it comes to the MS DOS start up, i made the diskette by doing the following:

MY computer>  FLoppy A:/(looked at)(right clicked)  >

Format(left click)>  made the bootable disk and kept it inside on startup,

this is where it got fustrating and i thought i was home free, it said "Starting up....." then went to having the

A:/>

next i typed in-then it gave me some dumb message

A:/>Format c:(start with typing this)

A:/>Format c:
Bad Command or File name(ended up with this)

could someone help on figureing out how to actually wipe my hard drive clean like this becuase my windows xp Professional Sp2 cd for some odd reason will not start up so i can just reformat(even if i want to do the other above).

Thank you

P.S. Just ask if you need more information

[Moderator]

Go into your bios and set the cdrom as the 1st boot device, save your changes & exit.
Boot your computer with the xp disk in the cdrom and make a cup of coffee.
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000647.htm

Thank you on that part Fed, but what i really want to figure out is the Formatting from DOS,thats my main priority, thanks on the back up plan.

[Moderator]

If you really want to do this from a floppy travel to bootdisk.com and DLoad a WinME custom bootdisk.
Extract the contents of the file to a clean floppy and boot to it.
Select Start machine with CDRom support and let it run...
At the A: prompt type format C: /u and hit Enter.

You are now watching all data on that drive dissappear.