Reformatting Windows XP

[Todd Somers]

Hello everyone,

I need to wipe my computer clean and start fresh from
scratch. I have it all screwed up. How do I reformat
Windows XP and wipe the hard drive clean?

 

[Guest]

Boot to xp cd,select,install xp,new copy,delete current OS and partition,
create one,then let xp reformatt and install.

 

[bxb7668]

I'll ask a slight variation of this question. I have Win XP Pro on a
PC that I'm about to dispose. I want it to have a clean hard drive.
Short of removing the hard drive and pounding it with a sledge hammer,
how do I reformat the drive without reinstalling XP?

 

[Alex]

Hi Todd, have just spent the evening finding out how to do
this and successfully putting it into practice.

Obviously, save any data you don't want to lose, as the
reformat will wipe all data and programmes. So you will
also need to check that you have got installation disks
and security codes, etc. It also may be worth going to
Device Manager and printing off list of all your devices
and drivers so that you can check they are all present and
correct when you re-install.

You then put the reinstallation CD (or whatever it's
called - will contain Windows XP) in the CD-ROM drive and
reboot. When you reboot, you need to ensure that the PC
boots from the CD-ROM drive first (you may have to change
BIOS settings in startup - normally, your PC will give
brief option of pressing an F key and entering startup
when it boots up normally, before welcome screen, etc.)

Basically, you then follow the instructions, which will
include deleting and reformatting your hard drive.
Windows should then reinstall itself and you then
reinstall your software. It was fairly straightforward
for me, although have one or two minor bugs that I'm
trying to crack. But quite painless all in all.

Also, worth consulting your user manual that should have
come with PC, which will contain instructions for this
process tailored to your machine. Good luck, Alex

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

I need to wipe my computer clean and start fresh from
scratch. I have it all screwed up. How do I reformat
Windows XP and wipe the hard drive clean?

Just boot from the Windows XP CD and follow the prompts for a
clean installation. It will do the reformat for you.

You can find detailed instructions here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

However why do you want to do this? In my view, it's almost
always a mistake. With a modicum of care, it should never be
necessary to reinstall Windows (XP or any other version). I've
run Windows 3.0, 3.1, WFWG 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows
2000, and Windows XP, each for the period of time before the next
version came out, and each on two machines here. I never
reinstalled any of them, and I have never had anything more than
an occasional minor problem.

It's my belief that this mistaken notion stems from the technical
support people at many of the larger OEMs. Their solution to
almost any problem they don't quickly know the answer to is
"reformat and reinstall." That's the perfect solution for them.
It gets you off the phone quickly, it almost always works, and it
doesn't require them to do any real troubleshooting (a skill that
most of them obviously don't possess in any great degree).

But it leaves you with all the work and all the problems. You
have to restore all your data backups, you have to reinstall all
your programs, you have to reinstall all the Windows and
application updates,you have to locate and install all the needed
drivers for your system, you have to recustomize Windows and all
your apps to work the way you're comfortable with.

Besides all those things being time-consuming and troublesome,
you may have trouble with some of them: can you find all your
application CDs? Can you find all the needed installation codes?
Do you have data backups to restore? Do you even remember all the
customizations and tweaks you may have installed to make
everything work the way you like?

Occasionally there are problems that are so difficult to solve
that Windows should be reinstalled cleanly. But they are few and
far between; reinstallation should not be a substitute for
troubleshooting; it should be a last resort, to be done only
after all other attempts at troubleshooting by a qualified person
have failed.

If you have problems, post them here, it's likely that someone
can help you and a reinstallation won't be required.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

I'll ask a slight variation of this question. I have Win XP Pro on a
PC that I'm about to dispose. I want it to have a clean hard drive.
Short of removing the hard drive and pounding it with a sledge hammer,
how do I reformat the drive without reinstalling XP?

Boot from a DOS disket and type Format C:

If your drive is NTFS, that won't work, and you'll first need to
run FDISK and remove the non-DOS Partition.

If you're paranoid about security or have very personal data on
the drive, you may want to take the extra step of running a
zero-fill utility, several of which are available for free
download on the web.

 

[XS11E]

I'll ask a slight variation of this question. I have Win XP Pro
on a PC that I'm about to dispose. I want it to have a clean hard
drive. Short of removing the hard drive and pounding it with a
sledge hammer, how do I reformat the drive without reinstalling
XP?

You want more that a format, you want to wipe the drive clean!

Go to the website of whoever made the drive, Maxtor, Western Digital,
etc. will have a free utility software download that will do a low
level format which will prevent the next user from reading any
information from the harddrive. Then the new user can install any OS
he wants to.

 

[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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