formatting hard drive

[Guest]

I'm using a hp pavillion notebook running xp home service pack 2, is there an
easy way to reformat my hard drive back to factory settings? i have never
done it before on any before on any computer so am a bit of a novice, any
simple advise would be great, cheers

 

[Nepatsfan]

The best approach to take would be to either consult the manual
that came with your notebook or check the HP web site for the
proper procedure. If you did not receive an installation CD
(Windows XP OEM or a Restore CD) then there's probably a hidden
partition on your hard drive that is used to restore the factory
settings. If you have an OEM CD you can follow the advice
outlined here:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/honeycutt_02october07.mspx

If you're not sure what to do post back with the following info:
What model # is your notebook? Did you receive any installation
CD's and if so, what are they labeled?

Before you reformat the hard drive you might want to post the
reasons why you feel you have to take that route. Someone here
may be able to point you in the direction of a far less drastic
solution to your problem.

 

[Rodney Kelp]

Back to what factory? The harddrive factory or the notebook factory?
If you want a clean drive go to bootdisk.com and download a windows ME OEM
boot disk and make a boot disk with that.
Run fdisk and remove the non-dos partitions. Create a new simgle (entire
disk) partition. Then run format and format the entire disk.
Now you can load any os you want. Linux, FreeBSD, Ms Windows, etc. You will
need to download from your notebook company the drivers for any sound, video
or other built in hardware you may have if the os you use doesn't do it
well.