How do I REFORMAT and what exactly does it do?

Question

I am limited in computor knowledge

Answer 1

Things are really only easy when you know how, and if you need to know what is does then I would suggest you dont try it, or play around with an only comp first utill your comfortable with it.

Answer 2

Reformatting can be an excellent way to get rid of unwanted, and unknown garbage that is cluttering up your hard drive. Your computer WILL slow down appreciably without a good cleaning of somesort or constant upgrading. I personally reformat once a year to get my computer running back to full speed. It is a time consuming adventure, if you include reinstalling your operating system and the programs you need.

The reformatting itself does not take very long. Reformatting doesn't "erase things like a chalkboard", it simply overwrites the data that is on there, and flags the sectors with data on them, as empty. The actual data is still there, until it gets over written with new data. The data that is actually there, can be recovered with unformat utilities, except for the sectors that get overwritten by the fresh copy of the OS or other things you reinistall.

If your planning on a reformat, have all system and device drivers handy to get your computer back to its former fast, and internet capable self. (display drivers, wifi, lan, soundcard). And of course, back up any critical data, games, music and photos. Most of all, have your OS disk WITH validation KEY.

Answer 3

Reformatting is the process of resetting and erasing portion of memory storage, it can be done in almost every type of memory, such as flash cards, and hard drives. When a drive is reformatted it looses all of the data on it. If you need to reformat a drive in windows you can right click in my computer and select format and let windows do it for you, or you can download and install software that can also do this. If you have to reformat the drive that is running windows on it, it is best to insert the windows CD and reinstall windows.

Answer 4

Reformatting your harddisk erases all data on that disk including the Operating System (Windows, Mac, Linux...).

Many brand computers come with recovery discs that let you do that. But if you want to do it by yourself, you'll need a startup disk

1) Make a startup disk (it could be a either floppy or a flash drive...)
2) Boot from it
3) Type: "format driveletter:" (drive letter could be C:, D:...)
4) Install your OS
5) You are good to go

CNEt has a step by step guide to doing this:

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6130_102-0.html?forumID=7&threadID=66200&messageID=785595

Good Luck!

Answer 5

if you have a windows XP disk put it in your drive and start the setup process, this will give you the option of deleting partitions and to format your hard drive.

formatting your drive just clears markers for programs off your hard drive so you can re-install your Operating system and in no way deletes data from your drive. data can always be recovered from a drive that has been formatted

Answer 6

reformatting is like erasing a chalkboard. it will get rid of your operating system and any files/programs you had stored on the hard drive. you only want to reformat if there is some crazy virus that you can't get rid of. and of course, you always want to try and backup any files/programs you want to hold onto first. hope this helps!

Answer 7

Reformatting your hard drive ERASES EVERYTHING on the drive (thus a BLANK drive). You LOSE EVERYTHING, Programs, files, etc that you have saved\installed etc.