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| 2/ LET'S FORMAT NOW ! Okay now that you're done backing up all your data, you should be ready to reformat your hard drive ! Make sure you have your Windows CD with its serial number, and all your driver CDs for your PCI cards or external devices (graphic card drivers, modem drivers etc...) If you're going to install Win XP, it is very likely that you won't have to use any of your drivers CDs, Win XP will provide almost all drivers, which is cool. Also make sure you have your most important programs (like Office, WinZip, a CD-burner program...). Let's boot under DOS Mode. You can do that either from Windows (Start, Turn Off, Go to DOS Mode) or by restarting your computer and inserting your start-up disk. Either way, once in DOS Mode, you will see that : A:\> This is where you are, on the floppy. To format your C: drive, you need to type this command : format c: /q /s /q is a paramater so as to format the drive quickly. /s is a paramater so as to copy the minimum system files onto your drive after the format. This will make it possible to boot onto your drive without any start-up disk. Otherwise you will get that kind of error "OS missing". The process will copy some essential (hidden) files for MS-DOS, plus command.com, the only visible file. After you press enter, the computer will ask you whether you're sure or not to format the drive ! It's your last chance to think of files you may have forgotten to save, so don't do it too quickly ! The format process will only take a few seconds, will check for integrity, and at the end end will ask you to name your drive. You can skip that. Your C: drive is now formatted. To verify it, now type : cd c: then : dir to get a list of the contents of your drive. Now you should only see that command.com file, and a lot of free space remaining ! It's now time to reinstall Windows (98 in this case, even if you're going to install XP, better keep Windows 98 or ME with you !) |
| Squid's Reformatting Guide for PC pt 3 |
| If you have any further questions regarding reformatting for PC Please Email Squid at : [email protected] |