How can I format my Hard Drive?

[Kermit911]

My hard drive is a mess, I would like to save it insted of buying a new one. Is there a way I can format the whole thing and start over fresh?

Thanx all
Kermit

[Autoload]

Yes. Just boot your PC off of the Windows install disk and choose to install a fresh copy of Windows. When prompted in the setup interface, choose to 'format drive' and install.

Here's a walkthrough with pics:
http://www.windowsreinstall.com/

[Kermit911]

THank you, thats perfect. :D

[patrickpawlowsk]

One additional thing, when you get to the 'select a partition' screen. If you really want to reformat your drive, which I highly recommend, you should delete all the partitions that it shows until the only thing left is 'unpartitioned space' and then select the 'unpartitioned space' to install to. If you do not do this, then your hard drive will not be reformatted or erased but you will get a fresh installation of Windows. However all the other files will still be there in pretty much the same condition as before. This may sound like a good deal, but your drive will still be fragmented and most of the applications that you had installed will still be taking up room but won't work. At least if they use the registry at all they won't. I hope this is correct, somebody please correct me if I am wrong. I always delete the partitions and reformat so it's been a long time since I've done any actual empirical testing on this.

Another thing, before you start, if you do not have the driver disks for all your hardware including your motherboard, you should go to downloads.com or somewhere and find a driver backup tool. What I do is backup all the drivers including the windows drivers to a folder then I burn the contents of that folder to a cd. The after you re-install, go to device manager and chances are you will have several 'unknown devices' which Windows didn't recognize and hence, didn't load drivers for. Just right click each one in turn and select update driver. When it asks where to find the driver just tell it to search and put the cd in the cd drive. Then when you're done, save the cd for next time.

I hope this helps.

-pat

[intelboy15]

if kermit is using windows xp, there isn't really a need (unless u have hardware made before 1995 or printers older than 8 years old). WinXP has generic drivers for most of the hardware, including generic drivers for video cards, sound cards, cd/dvd-rom drives, etc.

[IanS]

if kermit is using windows xp, there isn't really a need (unless u have hardware made before 1995 or printers older than 8 years old). WinXP has generic drivers for most of the hardware, including generic drivers for video cards, sound cards, cd/dvd-rom drives, etc.The built in drivers get you going, but more specialised drivers from the manufacturer of especailly video and sound cards enables the hardware to work more efficiently.

Yes, the video card may work in millions of colours, but the 3D facilities won't be available.

The sound card may make noises on speakers, but the 3D surround sound multi-speaker control and graphics equaliser is unlikely to be available via the generic drivers.

[patrickpawlowsk]

Thanks for the backup IanS. I have installed WinXP hundreds of times and there have only been a handful where Didn't show any 'unknown devices.' The three biggies are Video, Audio, and the Network card. The network card is the real clencher. If you only have one machine, you want to make sure you have the NIC driver, or modem driver, depending on how you connect to the rest of the world. Once you can connect, you download pretty much any other driver.

[IanS]

Thanks for the backup IanS. I have installed WinXP hundreds of times and there have only been a handful where Didn't show any 'unknown devices.' The three biggies are Video, Audio, and the Network card. The network card is the real clencher. If you only have one machine, you want to make sure you have the NIC driver, or modem driver, depending on how you connect to the rest of the world. Once you can connect, you download pretty much any other driver.Yes, the clincher is the NIC or modem driver (although you can usually connect slowly via modem). With a modem, you need also make sure you know the phone number etc for the ISP that you use. Many people in the UK will have old installation disks for a provider that has been renamed - Freeserve to Wanadoo - and the old installation disk for FreeServer don't work, and the Wanadoo ones don't easily allow you to re-install the software for an existing FreeServe account.