Reformat Drives                                  GURU:  DAVE SMITH             

 

 

  Q: How do you reformat a hard drive? Plus Reinstall Windows

 

  A: Be certain you have the following information before you begin a reformat:

 

      Windows settings

      Internet settings

      Working boot disk

      Software serial numbers

      Drivers for all Hardware

      Back up of Internet Bookmarks

      Back up all Files you created

 

To give a little history, every hard drive undergoes a low-level format, a partition, and a high-level format. These steps prepare your hard drive for reading and writing.

 

1.The factory does the low-level formatting, so don't worry about it. This procedure should be done only at the factory anyway.

 

2.Partitioning divides the drive into sections devoted to certain tasks. This improves disk efficiency by keeping separate your operating system, programs, and data. The operating system locates files and organizes them into little chunks called clusters. It's called the FAT, or file address table, system. The larger the disk space, the larger the clusters. Partitioning can be useful because it keeps the OS from wasting space with large clusters on a large disk.We only recommend this for 8 GB Hard Drives and larger like 2GB for C: and 6 GB for rest D:.

 

3.Finally you format the drive. The operating system erases the address tables on the disk, tests the disk to make sure all sectors are reliable, marks the bad sectors with virtual Do Not Enter signs, and creates a table to help locate information later.

 

Reformatting a disk does not erase your data. Instead, it erases the table that points to where the data is stored. If you accidentally reformat your drive, don't panic -- you can most likely recover the information on your disk. Don't recover information unless you have to, though. It can be a tricky procedure.

 

To format a drive, other then your C drive do the following:

 

    1.Open My Computer.

    2.Right-click on the drive you want to format.

    3.Select Format.

 

You will see several different parameters that you can change. For example, if you are formatting a floppy drive, choose a density of High . You can also choose to verify the disk to make sure the formatting was done correctly.

 

To format your C drive and reinstall your operating system do the following.

 

1. Have a Boot disk with f-disk and format on the floppy and reboot your computer.
2. If you need to partition your hard drive into two or more drives use F-Disk to do this.
3. To format your total drive as C drive, at the dos prompt type Format c:/s or just c: the /s will place a system on C with Windows ME don’t use /S
4. Ancer yes to all questions and when ask for volume label just press Enter. When finished you are now ready to install Windows.
5. Keep the boot disk in a drive and reboot, select boot with CD Rom support or chose Boot from CDRom.
6. If you selected Boot from CD Rom windows should start installing auto. If you selected to boot from a drive using CD Rom support you then must  change directory to What ever your CD Rom drive is Like.
7.  ( CD\ D enter) now type Setup press enter and windows will start to install. Have all your Drivers for all hardware ready and if you have Original  Reinstall CD that came with your system have it ready when ask for drivers.