harddrive help
Moderator: Wiz Feinberg
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Jerry Warner
- Posts: 295
- Joined: 16 Jan 2004 1:01 am
- Location: Charleston, West Virginia, USA
harddrive help
could one of you computer experts tell me in detail how to reformat a hard drive make it as simple as possible because i'm new at this computer stuff. thanks!
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Les Pierce
- Posts: 434
- Joined: 4 May 2000 12:01 am
- Location: Shreveport, LA
If you just want to format your hard drive:
Boot from some other source, (floppy drive, or CD drive), with a bootable disk. If you don't have a boot disk, go to http://www.bootdisk.com and download the appropriate one. (One for Win98SE, will work fine).
Note: If you have a working hard drive now, you may have to change the boot order in the BIOS Setup program, to keep the computer from booting from the C: drive.
Once you get to the DOS prompt, (i.e. A:\), type format C:, hit enter, and follow the prompts on the screen. If it's a big drive, it will take a while.
If you are re-installing your operating system. Boot from the install disks and watch for an option to reformat the drive, not just restore the operating system.
That's about as easy as it gets. That's the way I do it, anyway.
Les
Boot from some other source, (floppy drive, or CD drive), with a bootable disk. If you don't have a boot disk, go to http://www.bootdisk.com and download the appropriate one. (One for Win98SE, will work fine).
Note: If you have a working hard drive now, you may have to change the boot order in the BIOS Setup program, to keep the computer from booting from the C: drive.
Once you get to the DOS prompt, (i.e. A:\), type format C:, hit enter, and follow the prompts on the screen. If it's a big drive, it will take a while.
If you are re-installing your operating system. Boot from the install disks and watch for an option to reformat the drive, not just restore the operating system.
That's about as easy as it gets. That's the way I do it, anyway.
Les
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b0b
- Posts: 29079
- Joined: 4 Aug 1998 11:00 pm
- Location: Cloverdale, CA, USA
Jerry,
If you're really "new at this computer stuff", you shouldn't format a hard drive. I've been in the computer business for 20 years, and I own or maintain about a dozen computers. I can't remember the last time I needed to reformat a hard drive.
Formatting a hard drive isn't hard to do, but configuring your computer from scratch onto the resulting blank hard disk is a lot of work! That's why reformatting is something I try to avoid at all costs.
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<img align=left src="http://picturehost.net/b0b/ManzBob2.jpg" border="0"><small> Bobby Lee</small>
-b0b- <small> quasar@b0b.com </small>
System Administrator
If you're really "new at this computer stuff", you shouldn't format a hard drive. I've been in the computer business for 20 years, and I own or maintain about a dozen computers. I can't remember the last time I needed to reformat a hard drive.
Formatting a hard drive isn't hard to do, but configuring your computer from scratch onto the resulting blank hard disk is a lot of work! That's why reformatting is something I try to avoid at all costs.
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<img align=left src="http://picturehost.net/b0b/ManzBob2.jpg" border="0"><small> Bobby Lee</small>
-b0b- <small> quasar@b0b.com </small>
System Administrator