Sometimes you just have to format. I equate it to a baptism for your
computer, you are washing away all the sins from it, making it new, fresh,
giving it a new beginning. I know people feel formatting can be a traumatic
experience, but if it's any comfort to you, most computer pros format their
computers more often then most beginners. The difference is: Computer Geeks
can get their computer up and running in an hour after a format (maybe less
time than that) and a beginner might get it up and running in 4 to 5 hours
(sometimes longer).
So let me walk you through the important things you should do before,
during, and after a format:
Pre-Format steps (The stuff before you go nuts and format):
-
Backup your important data - Just because you have to format doesn't mean
you have to lose everything on your computer. Backup outlook, important
documents, downloads, just about anything you can burn to a disk that will
make your computer like home again. Just think of this step as if you're
moving...you pack up all the junk you want before you move into the new
place.
-
Startup Disk - Make a bootable startup disk, in Windows 98, ME, 2k, and XP
they have where you can make a startup disk. So, get yourself a startup
disk.
-
Go to your device manager and write down the hard drive components you
have on your computer. This will make it easier if you can't find the
drivers you need, you'll be able to get them off the net or the original
CD's that came with your computer or components.
FDisk - Getting the partition ready (SKIP THIS STEP IF YOU
WANT TO KEEP YOUR EXISTING PARTITIONS)
If you already have a partition on your hard drive you can skip this step. I
personally like to make a new partition and really have a clean start when
installing an operating system or if I want to manage the partition size of a
large hard drive. So here are the steps:
-
Insert the startup disk that you made in the first part of this tutorial.
Restart your computer and your computer will boot from the floppy disk
drive. In Windows (98 and ME) you'll get a question asking if you want cd
support or not, go ahead and scroll down to: "Start Computer Without
CD-Rom support"
-
At the command prompt type fdisk
-
If your hard drive is bigger than 512 mb (ugh, like who's isn't now) It
will ask if you want large disk support. Type in Y or yes
You'll then see an option menu that contains the follow
choices:
-
Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive
-
Set Active Partition
-
Delete Partition or Logical DOS Drive
-
Display Partition information
-
Change current fixed disk drive
Once you get to this you'll have a few options and there
are a few things you need to know. If you already have a DOS partition and you
want to delete it then you go to 3. Delete Partition or Logical DOS Drive and
you'll select to delete this drive.
To create a new partition on your hard drive you select 1.
Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive then press enter. Then on the next
menu select 1. Create Primary DOS Partition and then press Enter. After you do
this you'll get the message "Do you wish to use the maximum available size for
primary DOS partition?" That basically is assigning how much space you want on
the partition (only for Fat38 or NTFS if you want to install using a FAT 16
you'll have to follow a few different steps not covered in this
tutorial...mainly because I haven't formatted anything in FAT16 in such a long
time I forgot off the top of my head). If you have a large hard drive you
might want to break it up into smaller partitions. For now let's say you just
want to use the whole hard drive space for this partition. You'll type Y and
then Enter. After doing this you'll hit Esc and then Esc to quit Fdisk.
This will create one large partition hard drive...(if
you've wanted to make multiple partitions you would basically not assign all
the space to the one partition and then go
-
Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive and then on the second menu you
would hit choice
-
Create Extended DOS Partition and then you can create another partition
with the remaining space.)
Formatting your Hard Drive
-
Insert Start Up Disk
-
Get to the command prompt
-
Type Format C: (or whatever letter is assigned to the drive you want to
format) **Note if you get a message like "Bad command or file name" you'll
have to extract the format.com file to do this just type: extract ebd.cab
format.com at the command prompt and then type Format C:
-
The startup disk will ask you "WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK
DRIVE C: WILL BE LOST!Proceed with Format (Y/N)?" Now once you hit Y
everything on your hard drive will be deleted. Type Y
-
After the format is complete it will ask "Volume label (11 characters,
ENTER for none)?" Either put a name in or just hit enter
There you have it a formatted hard drive!!! Ready for you to install an
operating system on...so get going and install one already.