Formatting a hard drive?

Question

How do you format a hard drive, what precautions do you need to take

Answer 1

Precautions:

- Make sure you backup any important files

- Make sure you have a valid and legit CD Key

Steps:

- Pop in your Vista/XP CD.

- Restart your computer & go into BIOS. To go into BIOS, press F1, F2 or Delete. It varries from motherboard vendors.

- After you've got into the BIOS, go to a section called "Boot" or something similar.

- Look for something called "Boot Sequence or Boot Order" or something along those lines.

- After that, save & exit.

- A black screen with white text saying "Press any key to boot from CD.." (XP) or "Preparing Windows files.." or something like that (Vista)

The rest is pretty much self explanatory and it shows you a bunch of options.  

Answer 2

save all the files you want to cd before you format drive. ok go to bootdisk.com & download Dos6.22 to a floppy disk that will be your fdisk (fix it disk) then with the fdisk inserted reboot computer while holding esc key then when page loads then type fdisk & hit enter when page loads you will have 4 choices choose delete non dos partition then hit esc key then choose delete primary partition you will get a warning that if you choose yes all data will be lost please choose yes or y for yes then hit enter that will erase everything from your hard drive including windowsxp then hit esc to exit fdiskmay have to hit esc twice once you done that then remove floppy and lnsert your windows xp or vista disk you will be prompted to press any key then let windows setup begin you will see press to boot from cd ignore that and let cd continue to load when prompted to press F8 to agree to terms please do so then you will have a choice to quick format or full format. quick format if your hard drive been used before but full format for better results then let windows do it's thing until time for you to enter product key code if you do not have key code you are stuck right there so be sure you have that before you attempt to format drive. type in code and windows pretty much does the rest. after install is complete you will have to put back the programs you use such as yahoo messenger, ie7, avg 8.0 free version of anti-virus & spyware protection, java etc. good luck & enjoy your new computer.

Answer 3

The only precaution you need to take is to make sure that there's nothing in it you'll need later before you format it. If its another harddrive and not the one with your operating system and its already connected simply right click on it in My computer and select "Format". If its the one you're currently using (with the operating system) just boot from the OS disc and simply follow the instructions and format it from there.

Answer 4

find out the drive letter of the HD you want to format, ie D: F: etc

restart your pc, press F6 before windows starts

start in dos mode from the menu.

type:

format f:  (the drive lettter) [enter]

Answer 5

Here is how to format a HDD through Windows XP.

Here is the link.

http://www.ehow.com/how_6026_format-hard...

Answer 6

Make sure no programs are currently running, look on the taskbar, right click on the icons and close. better still delete the programs