how to format the hard disk?

[Naby Soumah]

hello everybody

I'm using WinXP and I would like to format my computer's
hard disk. How can I do that? and If I actually get to
format it, how can I re- install WinXP?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Dave]

Assuming you have a Windows XP bootable disk and not a "restore" disk, boot
from the XP CD and let let setup do the formatting for you.

 

[Anonymous Joe]

hello everybody

I'm using WinXP and I would like to format my computer's
hard disk. How can I do that? and If I actually get to
format it, how can I re- install WinXP?

Thanks for any help.

holy hell, you're asking for a bad thing to happen to you.

newbies, which i can only assume you are with a question of this nature,
aren't supposed to be doing this themselves.

but, anyways, you asked, so here you go...set your bios to boot from cd
first, plop in the xp cd into your first cd drive, then when it says booting
it may ask you to hit a key to boot, so just hit a key or else it will boot
from your hard drive. then setup will commence loading. it will give you
an option to delete your partition you currently have, do so, and then to
create a new one, do so. you can make the new partition be the whole drive
(ie 100gb drive, 100gb C or you can split it up (ie 100gb drive, 50GB C:,
50GB D, or split it up using some rather strange figures (ie 100gb drive,
20GB C:, 40GB D:, 40GB E, for security reasons (ie you have access to E:,
but nobody else does, so you have 40gb to yourself, with the rest of the
users using the other 40gb on D: -- you must understand that a hard drive
can have more than 1 drive letter, since the letters actualyl refer to
partitions, which is a part of a drive. its standard to let the part be
100%). then it will format that partition, install windows, and reboot,
then load windows and do some normal install stuff.

be sure you want to do this -- ie, backup documents and if you have anything
that you will forget, or if you have a setting that you dont remember where
it came from, figure that out now.

 

[Honjo]

Why do you want ot format a hard drive your computer? If you just want
to re-install WXP then there is no need to format before you start
re-installing.

Kaz

 

[Anthony Laudani]

Why do you want ot format a hard drive your computer? If you just want
to re-install WXP then there is no need to format before you start
re-installing.

Honjo:

Hmmm... that's funny.... I've just been having an ongoing conversation
in this group about re-installing WindowsXP. Everything I've heard
says that you DO have to format if you want to re-install WinXP
(unless, of course, you want to do a WinXP "repair" installation).

Can you shed some light on the process by which I wouldn't have to
re-format my partition/drive to re-install XP?

 

[Honjo]

In the process of re-installing WXP you will be asked where to install,
etc. And you will have a chance to have the partition formatted. Another
word you can let WXP installer format a partition where you want to
install WXP.

Kaz

 

[Anthony Laudani]

In the process of re-installing WXP you will be asked where to install,
etc. And you will have a chance to have the partition formatted. Another
word you can let WXP installer format a partition where you want to
install WXP.

Kaz:

Thanks for this clarification!

 

[Ian Smythe]

hello everybody

I'm using WinXP and I would like to format my computer's
hard disk. How can I do that? and If I actually get to
format it, how can I re- install WinXP?

Thanks for any help.

Just maybe if you had told us why you wanted to format your hard
drive you might have gotten the correct answer. It never hurts to supply
sufficient information. :-(

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

Simply boot from the WinXP installation CD. You'll be offered the
opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part of the
installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the order of boot
devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)

HOW TO Install Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;316941

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

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm


Bruce Chambers

--
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having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Guest]

-----Original Message-----
hello everybody

I'm using WinXP and I would like to format my computer's
hard disk. How can I do that? and If I actually get to
format it, how can I re- install WinXP?

Thanks for any help.
.
thanks fot all the answers.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I'm using WinXP and I would like to format my computer's
hard disk. How can I do that? and If I actually get to
format it, how can I re- install WinXP?

You do it as part of a reinstall of the system after booting the XP CD
direct. Enter Setup, and after the license agreement take New Install.
When it asks you to confirm where, hit ESC; select and delete the
current partition and make a new RAW one to be formatted at the next
stage

The important point is the delete. Without that it will just go ahead
and make a new install over the top of the old one