Formatting my harddrive

Mirmage · 02-04-2005, 19:14

Well, I'm a bit of a hardware noob and would like to know the pros, cons and way to go about resetting my computer to factory settings. As far as I know I open my computer and right click on harddrive and select 'format'. This right?

Also what are the dangers of doing this if any? I only have a 'product recovery CD-ROM and no windows disk. Will this be enough to reload, and reinstall windows and update my hardware drivers?

Wish · 02-04-2005, 20:35

The Pros are that it wipes everything off your hard disk.
The Cons are that it wipes everything off your hard disk.

No point in doing it if you have a stable working system.

Mirmage · 02-04-2005, 21:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wish

The Pros are that it wipes everything off your hard disk.
The Cons are that it wipes everything off your hard disk.

No point in doing it if you have a stable working system.

Okay, How do I do it?

Wish · 02-04-2005, 22:22

If you want to do it I would suggest creating a floppy disk for when you want to restore your system in case the CDROM isn't recognised as a system disk.
Format a floppy disk with 'MSDOS startup disk'.
You might be able to restore straight from the CDROM, you could try setting the 1st Boot up device to CDROM in the bios and save (Usually Press Delete on restart to get into the bios) and then see if the Restore CD starts up. Should try this before formatting

I imagine the restore disk contains all the information you need for a restore. Backup any data not related to the operating system that you want on to other disks.

If you feel sure you can restore your system with the disks you have then to format simply boot up with the floppy disk or CDROM and enter the MSDOS mode and type: format c:\ or whatever drive it is that you want to format at dos prompt. Remember this will delete ALL data on the hard drive.

Incidently why do you want to format your drive?

Chronic · 02-04-2005, 23:53

if your on Win XP pop the XP disk into your drive restart pc press F8 i think it is to go to the boot menu choose your CD ROM Drive or whatever it is. then follow the instructions, you will need to delete the "partition" thats in the box and then create a new one with the NTSC format id say. then follow the instruction to install XP on your pc again. make sure you have your motherboard driver disk etc . if you dont your pc wont work correctly.

Thats it i think, have i missed anything?

teflon · 03-04-2005, 04:04

its a lot easier than that if you have the/any XP disk.
just make sure cd drive is first boot in the bios and turn the computer on with the windows disk in. follow the instructions and it gives you the option to format and reinstall windows.

you wont need motherboard drivers or anything. just maybe ISP software

Chronic · 05-04-2005, 01:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by teflon

its a lot easier than that if you have the/any XP disk.
just make sure cd drive is first boot in the bios and turn the computer on with the windows disk in. follow the instructions and it gives you the option to format and reinstall windows.

you wont need motherboard drivers or anything. just maybe ISP software

or press F8 a few times times as the computer boots to access the boot menu. thn you can select the cd rom drive to install xp

and you will need graphics drivers and the motherboard ones for LAN etc. wothout them i had problems.