How do I reformat a computer as in wiping everything out?

Question

Can someone please give me instructions as in a 14 year old understanding those instructions?

Answer 1

IF YOU HAVE XP YOU CAN HOLD DOWN F10 WHEN STARTING THE COMPUER THEN DO FULL RECOVERY AND FOLLOW THE ON SCREEN DIRECTIONS

Answer 2

Formatting a system is a simple process, really. First you make sure you have the discs that came with the computer, if any. If you don't have any discs, then it is likely that the manufacturer provided a special BIOS utility that will do the wiping for you. When the computer boots, you should see a screen that advertises what key to press to enter setup and, if available, what key to press to start recovery.

There are two types of recovery, destructive and non-destructive. A destructive recovery repartitions and formats the hard drive and non destructive leaves all your personal data files and just rebuilds the system files. Depending on why you feel you need to format you would choose one or the other.

By your question, I assume you need to do a destructive recovery so make sure you have selected that option and let the recovery process complete. It should take a little under an hour depending again on the manufacturer and how much stuff they have installed on the system.

If you do not have a recovery option but do have discs, then you insert disc one and it should start the recovery process and you follow the above. (If your BIOS is not set to boot from CD/DVD, then you will have to enter BIOS at boot and alter the Boot menu to make sure that the CD/DVD drive is first in the list.)

If you do not have recovery CDs then you will need a Windows XP CD to start the install. This process is a bit different. First insert the CD, then turn on the computer. If it is set to boot from CD first, you will see a Boot from CD option on the screen and it will wait a few for you to press a key and then boot to the hard drive if you don't. Pressing any key starts the Windows XP install. The first thing you will see is a message that says Press F6 to install RAID drivers, this is only for special drivers that will allow the computer to "see" the hard drive. Most likely you will not need to do this unless you are using RAID.

Next you will see PRESS F2 TO START ASR, again, you do not want to press this.

Then more files will load. Then you will be told to press enter and then f8 to agree with Microsoft's license terms. These you must press. After you agree by pressing F8, the install program checks to see if Windows is installed and since it will be you must read the options it displays carefully. You want to continue the install and to do so you must press ESC. Then setup will check the drive and offer you more choices... you may have to read these carefully as I may be forgetting a step or two.

After you see the screen that lists the partitions on the drive, you want to choose the option to delete the partition and setup will ask you to confirm this by asking you to press certain keys, be sure to read carefully and press the appropriate key until you see the screen that displays the hard drive status again and if you did it right you will see Unpartitioned Space, make sure it is highlighted and press enter and setup will offer you formatting options.

Choose either full format or quick format depending on how long you are willing to wait. Large hard drives take a long time to do a full format and most systems will work fine using a quick format so this is what i recommend.

After this you will see setup copy a lot of files to the hard drive and after it is done it will restatr and then actually install the OS.

This is a basic rundown. If you need further assistance you can always use send me an email through my answers profile or you can visit my site linked below.

Answer 3

Restart your computer,while restarting keep pressing F5 to start windows in Safe mode with command prompt.

After windows starts with command promt then type
format c:
and hit enter.
Do as directed for next steps by Dos.

If this doesnt solve then mail me same question on
power@[e-mail]

Answer 4

General info & instructions :
http://gingersnap.org/how_to_format_your_hard_drive.htm

I suggest you use either of these free tools... they come with instructions :

Dariks Boot and Nuke (DBAN)
secure hard drive erasure
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/dban.html

OR

Partition Logic is a free hard disk partitioning and data management tool. It can create, delete, format, defragment, resize, and move partitions and modify their attributes.
http://partitionlogic.org.uk/

regards,
Philip T

Answer 5

what os do u have?