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Formatting harddrive
Topic Started: Jul 31 2005, 02:08 PM (82 Views)
MaxPower
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Follower of Branigann's Law
How do you do this?


My pc is so fucked that there is no way i'll get it working right so wipeing its memory and starting over is the only way to go.
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GrantB
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Grant is a magnificent bastard
There's a couple of ways that you can go about doing that.

If you've got one of those all-in-the-box computers; i.e. HP Pavilion, IBM - they partition the hard drive and set aside a backup partition that contains all of the original software that came with the system. You have to hit some sequence of keys at startup, and an option menu will come up - one option is to reformat. Check your manual or look online.

Otherwise - what operating system are you running? If you have Win98SE, make sure you have your Windows CD, the serial# and the emergency boot disk, or a DOS system disk. All you need is a bootable disk with with COMMAND.COM and a driver for your CD drive.

IIRC, the Win98 emergency boot disk will have everything you need...but if you didn't make one, and there isn't one with the system, get one from a friend with an uninfected system.

To format your C: drive, boot from the system disk to a DOS prompt. Then, type:

Code:
 
FORMAT C: /S


This will reformat your hard drive and install a bootable operating system. From there, you need to reinstall Windows from the emerg boot disk and CD.

If you have XP, there's a slightly different procedure, but google "reinstall XP" and you should come up with some results. I've never had to reinstall XP, so I can't say for certain.
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Titan
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There is no such thing as "Wiping the memory" Bud

Formating your HHD isnt an easy thing to do! Even though I do it every month! I wrote aguide for ya!

1/ Before you can format your drive from the Windows XP CD you must ensure that your pc is able to boot directly from the CD - see Enabling CD-ROM support in the BIOS

2/ Insert the XP CD into your CD-ROM and reboot your machine.

3/When the Welcome to Setup screen appears press Enter

4/The next screen will show the license agreement. To accept press F8

5/Setup will now scan your drive for existing copies of Windows.

6/ If another copy of Windows is found you will be given two options


Install New Copy


7/ You need to install a New Copy so press ESC

8/ The next Window will show a list of all current drives and partitions.

9/ Select the C: drive for your installation to be installed to and press Enter

10/ The next window will show the format options. These are:

Format the partition by using the NTFS file system (quick)

Format the partition by using the FAT32 file system (quick)

Format the partition by using the NTFS file system <--- Pick this

Format the partition by using the FAT32 file system

Leave the current file system intact (No Changes)

The FAT32 file system is not available if your hard drive or selected partition is larger than 32GB

11/ Select the file system you want to use and press Enter

12/ Your hard drive/partition will now begin to format

13/ After formatting has been completed Windows XP will continue to install on your hard drive.


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spacemountain2000
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Now you're boring us
eMachines is on sale at Wal Mart!
:bonk
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