Formatting

[toogreen]

Well, I have a very simple question in which I hope someone here can easily answer. What is formatting a computer, and how do I go about doing so. Any detailed information or links would be awsome. As, you can see I am fairly new to computer terminology

 

[Booyah]

formatting means to erase EVERYTHING from a drive. u can format a floppy disk, CDRW's, or your hard drive. most store bought pc's (which i assume u have if you dont know what formatting is) come with a RECOVERY DISK. if you put that in your CD drive and power down for 30 seconds, then power up, you should get some easy to follow instruction on how to do it. remember, if you want to format you'll want to FORMAT and RECOVER, not just RECOVER.

 

[toogreen]

Oh I see. Well, you are right in assuming I am on a store bought computer at the moment. But, I have just bought a rig from newegg.com and will be building it myself so this is something i really needed to know. Anyway, once I get my rig up and running well, how do I go about creating my own RECOVERY DISK?

 

[gaara]

Formatting a drive means that you are basically "cleaning" the drive, you are wiping out all of the data on the drive, and making it completely empty.

You may format specific partitions in Windows by right clicking on the drive, and clicking "format", however the drive which stores your OS must be formatted using a command from MS DOS (C:\<format c. When reinstalling Windows, the installer will also generally format your OS drive.

 

[Booyah]

as long as you have an OEM OS (full version of your operating system, most likely Windows XP) you would use THAT as your recovery disk. to format using Windows XP, you just put the cd in your cd drive and if your current windows installation is operable, just click NEW INSTALLATION in the drop down menu that appears. if your current windows installation is inoperable, then put your windows xp disk in the cd drive and reboot then READ and follow instructions. most computers will boot from the cd drive before the harddrive. IF IT DOES NOT boot from the cd and goes straight to your old installation of windows then you will have to enter bios on your next restart and tell the computer which device you want the computer to boot from 1st. you can enter bios a number of ways on bootup, it depends on the motherboard. usually its the <delete> key but it could be F1, F3, F5, F8 or the left <CTRL> key. you'll just have to keep rebooting untill you find the correct key or visit your motherboard manufacturer's website for support on that. once u figure that out make the computer boot from the CDDRIVE 1st. then reboot with windows xp in the CDDRIVE.