How to Format Your Hard drive (For Windows XP)

Formatting a hard drive is one of those things you hope you never have to do. Sometimes though it is unavoidable. Viruses, lack of disk space, and other problems can lead you to having to do this. Either way, I am going to show you how to do this step by step in the easiest possible way.

Preparation

Step 1- Important!! Formatting a hard drive means that you will lose all programs and documents on the drive. You will be giving your computer a brand new beginning. That means if there are some programs that you would like to keep, or important documents that you can't afford to lose, you need to save these before formatting.

Step 2- Save everything to a CD, DVD, or a hard drive that you won't be formatting.

How to Format and Install Using the Windows XP CD

Step 1- First, insert your Windows XP installation disc into your CD drive.

Step 2- As your computer boots it will say “Press any key to boot from CD..” Press any key.

Step 3- The CD will load a blue screen and then spend a while loading files it needs. When it is finished loading it will list a few options, you want to “Press ENTER to set up Windows XP.”

Step 4- Now you will be at a screen to select where to install Windows to. This is where you can delete old partitions and format drives. The box in the bottom half of the screen shows all your drives and the partitions that exist on them. Use the Up and Down arrow keys to highlight your “C:” partition and press the 'D' key. If all that shows up is “Unpartitioned space” and you have no C: or D: partitions, skip this step. On the next screen you will need to press the 'L' key to finalize deleting the partition.

Step 5- Now you should be back on the screen to choose where to install Windows. The box on the lower half of the screen should simply have an entry “Unpartitioned space xxxxxMB.” showing. Select this with the arrow keys and press the 'C' key to create a partition on the drive. The next screen tells you the minimum and maximum sizes the partition can be and lets you pick the size. The default size is the maximum, but just to be safe, double check that the number entered is the maximum and hit enter.

Step 6- Now you will be back at the choose where to install Windows screen. But this time you will have a partition that looks something like this “C: Partition1 [New (Raw)]xxxxxxMB.” Highlight this entry and press enter.

Step 7- The next screen will let you choose which file system you want to format the drive with. Choose NTFS because it is faster and more secure. If the drive is brand new and has never been used before then use one of the options that ends in “(Quick).” Or, choose one of the lower down options. Use the arrow keys to select the proper one and press Enter or Return.

Step 8- And that's all there is to it. Installation of Windows will proceed starting with a format of your drive. It takes a least 30 minutes to complete so kick back for a little while.