Is this possible?

[Dr Nick]

Is it possible to completely reformat a Harddrive without installing an OS? I have a spare HDD i want to use for storage in annother computer right now. That computer uses the drive as its main drive. The only ways i have seen to reformat are using a Windows boot disk and instaling an OS. Is there some way i can just reformat and be left with a clean drive?

 

[joshd]

just use command prompt to format the HDD, and then remove it. how many HDD's do you have in ur system?

open run from the start menu, and type "cmd".

then put "format X:", where x is ur drive letter.

(remember, no quotes when typing into the command prompt)

 

[BASSMASTER]

just use command prompt to format the HDD, and then remove it. how many HDD's do you have in ur system?

open run from the start menu, and type "cmd".

then put "format X:", where x is ur drive letter.

(remember, no quotes when typing into the command prompt)

If you're running Windows XP you can also use the disk management utility to format it.

 

[RicoDirenzo]

All you have to do is install the drive as an IDE slave. The system will recognize the drive (hopefully). Go to My Computer and right click on the drive icon for the slave and you will see, in the drop down, the format command. Format the drive and you're done!

 

[timmer]

load windows xp disc in and delete the partition then put it in the new computer and find the drive in my computer then right click and format it

 

[RicoDirenzo]

You don't need The xp cd or anything else. Just do as I said above and your done. This is not complicated!!!

 

[joshd]

what happens if it is his master drive he wants to format? does it format, and then..... nothing.

 

[Dr Nick]

Well the drive i want to format is the only drive in that system. Im kind of wondering how it can keep reformatting once it deletes windows

 

[BASSMASTER]

Well the drive i want to format is the only drive in that system. Im kind of wondering how it can keep reformatting once it deletes windows

You can't format from the drive you using. Even in the command prompt, you're still on your C: drive, you can't format C from C.

You need some other type of media that you can run dos from, boot disk, boot cd etc...

 

[joshd]

just format it on the comp you are moving it to.