How do I format my Hard drive??

[saffy_dave]

HI everyone,
Without going into too much detail. My hard drive has XP
O/S on it. All I want to do is to format it. NTFS. So I have
a clean hard drive with no operating system on it. How can
I do it?

Dave

 

[Billy the Adult]

Put your XP cd in and let it go through the steps as if you were going to re-install. When you get to the option where you can delete all partitions do that.. Then Format the drive anew. After the drive is formatted it will automatically restart before installing the OS. Remove the XP cd and your end result will be a formatted hard drive with no operating system. Good Luck!

 

[frankjohn]

First of all back up your drivers. If you have a legal copy of XP full version just install the disc and follow the instructions.

 

[bbearren]

HI everyone,
Without going into too much detail. My hard drive has XP
O/S on it. All I want to do is to format it. NTFS. So I have
a clean hard drive with no operating system on it. How can
I do it?

Dave

Bear in mind that it will still have everything on it, it just won't be readable by an operating system. There are tools available that can still pull almost everything off the drive. If your intent is to scrub the drive clean, a format alone won't do that.

 

[raybro]

If you really want to wipe ALL data from the hard drive, use Darik's Boot and Nuke aka: dban to create a bootable CD, DVD, floppy or Flash drive. You then boot from the created bootable media and use dban to completely wipe the entire drive or any selected portion thereof. Then, if you so desire, you can format and partition the drive any way you like.

Raybro

 

[saffy_dave]

Okay, I was able to format the drive - it loaded some files before rebooting in which I removed the XP installation disk. I had a second Drive with an uncorrupt version of XP on it. I put that in my computer and also wired in the formatted drive. But from the uncorrupted XP OS all I
could see was my C disk. I couldn't see the formatted drive. Originally
before I had problems with my hard drive. I could see both C drive
and D drive.
What am I doing wrong ... please??
Dave

 

[bbearren]

Make sure your drive jumpers are set correctly.

 

[Rick_in_Fla]

Do you have the uncorrupted drive set as master and the formatted drive set as slave? If you go to disk management can you see the drive from there?

 

[saffy_dave]

They are both SATA drives. WDCWD3200JS. If I go to disk management
I can only see the C drive. The other formatted drive I connected into the system using the small red ribbon connector.The C uncorrupted drive is connected by a multi-coloured connector and the other small red ribbon connctor. I have two loose 4 pin connectors (yellow, black,black,red) which are not connected but the other end connects to the multi-coloured connector attached to the uncorrupted C drive.
?? Is that any help?
Dave

 

[Rich-M]

Go into Disk Management by right click My Computer, choose "Manage" then Disk Management and see if it shows there formatted.

 

[saffy_dave]

Hi Rich,
It only shows my C drive that's all.
When I used the XP installation disk to format the drive, after
forrmatting, it started to copy over more files (about 2 mins) then
it restarted. This is the point I removed the XP installation disk. I was
wondering that after formatting I shoud have forced a reboot??
Dave

 

[Rich-M]

Usually after format the next thing done is copy files needed then reboot and continue with install.

 

[Lance1]

After format it'll copy over all the files it needs to continue the install. The system will restart. This is normal. Do nothing and let the install do it's thing.

 

[Rick_in_Fla]

Quote All I want to do is to format it. NTFS. So I have
a clean hard drive with no operating system on it. How can
I do it?

 

[DoubleHelix]

Is the other drive recognized by the BIOS?