Formatting a hard drive while using or installing Windows XP, can be very useful for clearing everything off a secondary drive or installing a fresh copy of Windows.
Formatting a computer hard drive is simple and can help eliminate viruses, storage issues and other hard-to-resolve problems.
1 Formatting a computer hard drive will remove everything that is on the drive. It is important to back up anything you might want later.
If you are formatting and installing XP, make sure you have the discs for any applications or third party hardware you have as you will need to re-install your programs and drivers after re-installing Windows.
2 Check what you have on the computer that you don't want to lose. You probably want everything in your My Documents folder, and save things like your favorites or bookmarks from your Web browser. Also mail, etc that you have for contact addresses.
Each user on a WIn XP computer has their own My Documents folder, Desktop items and Favorites/Bookmarks.
3 Save everything to a CD, DVD or a hard drive that is not being formatted.
1 Right-Click "My Computer" icon either on your desktop or in the Start Menu -> select "Manage."
2 A new window "Computer Management" comes up. Select "Storage" from the left hand side by clicking it once, then select "Disk Management (local)" from right side by double- clicking this.
3 In the lower part of the frame on right of window you should see an image o your hard drives. Each one is a different drive. Each box on a line (coloured bar at top and size given in MB or GB) is a partition on the drive.
Partitions are separate spaces on a drive. Unless you do something specific that requires multiple partitions, you may only want one partition per drive.
4 First delete any existing partitions on the drive you are formatting.
Right click on partitions box and select Delete Partition -> You know
you are deleting everything on this drive, and you have already backed
everything you need up then: you can say yes to any warning the computer gives.
5 If the drive has multiple partitions make sure you have saved everything off
Then repeat the above step for each.
If you only want to format one partition that's OK You can continue to the next step without deleting other partitions.
6 The box for the drive being formatted should have a black bar at the top of it and say "Unallocated" under its size. Right click on it and select "New Partition..." The New Partition Wizard will appear.
7 In the Partition Wizard click next. On the next page make sure "Primary Partition" is selected and click next. Make the size equal to the maximum (it should already be set to it), and click next again.
On next page the computer will automatically choose the first available drive letter for the new drive or you can choose another drive letter from the drop-down menu, and click next.
8 The Partition Wizard will ask if you want to format the new partition and if so what format.
Choose "NTFS" as it is faster and more secure. Leave the "Allocation unit size" as "Default." In the "Volume label" field enter whatever name you want the drive to have.
Avoid using spaces. If the drive is new and never used before check the "Perform a quick format" box.
If the drive has been used before leave this box unchecked.
Leave the "Enable file and folder compression" box unchecked and click next.
On next page click finish.
9 The wizard will format the drive.
On old or large drives this may
take a while.
Do not close the "Computer Management" window until it
finishes.
It is done when the word under the size of the drive changes from "Formatting" to "Healthy" and the name and drive letter you chose for the new drive shows.
After it is finished you can proceed to use your newly formatted drive.
1 This explains how to reformat a drive from Windows XP installation CD.
This can be used when installing a fresh copy of Windows onto a computer.
Backup all of your important information as formatting will lose EVERYTHING on the drive ->applications and device drivers.
2 Insert your Windows XP installation disc into your CD drive (Home or Pro).
3 Computer boots and will say "Press any key to boot from CD.." press a key to do so.
4 The CD will load up a blue screen and load the files it needs.
When finished it will list a few options, mainly "Press ENTER to set up
Windows XP." Press Enter or Return.
5 Now you will see a screen to select where to install Windows. This is where you can delete old partitions and format drives.
The box in the bottom half of the screen shows all drives and their partitions that exist. Use the Up and Down arrow keys to highlight your "C:" partition and press the 'D' key (if all that shows up is "Unpartitioned space" and you have no C: or D: partitions, skip this step).
On next screen press the 'L' key to delete the partition.
6 Now you are at a screen to choose where to install Windows.
The box on the lower half of the screen should not show the partition but an entry "Unpartitioned space xxxxxMB." Select this with the arrow keys and press the 'C' key to create a partition on the drive.
The next screen tells you the minimum and maximum sizes the partition can be and lets you pick the size.
The default size is the maximum, but check the number entered is the maximum and hit enter.
7 Now you are back at choose where to install Windows screen.
But
this time you will have a partition that looks something like this
"C:
Partition1 [New (Raw)]xxxxxxMB."
Highlight this and press enter.
8 At the next screen you can choose the file system to format the drive with.
NTFS is faster and more secure.
If the drive is brand new -> never been used ->then use one of the options that ends in "(Quick)."
Or, choose one of the lower down options.
Use arrow keys to select
the proper one and press Enter or Return.
9 You are ready and the installation of Windows will proceed starting with a format of your drive.
This can take a while (over 30 mins) so take a break