I need to reformat my hard drive and reinstall windows because i accidentally installed 2 OS...process?

Question

I need to know how to format my hard drive. Once i get Windows moving on the installation I can take it from there w/ drivers, ect. Thanks!

Answer 1

Insert your Windows XP CD... boot to the CD-ROM (usually you hit F12 for the boot menu)

Then delete the partition when it asks, create a new one and then Windows installs automatically.

Answer 2

Before formatting, BACK up your data, pictures, music, favorites etc as it will be destroyed. Also, open device manager and WRITE DOWN the exact make and model of your Sound card, video Card, modem, and Nic. After you are done, you may find the above do not work because they are not plug and play and Windows cant find the drivers. In that case YOU will have to find them and knowing the make and model of these makes your life much easier!
Now, insert the Cd in the drive. It sounds like your bios is already set to boot from the CD first, so dont mess with the bios.
Your computer may say hit any key to boot from CD, then type, "Any"
Windows will then tell you it is loading. You will get to a screen that asks you if you want to repair windows, and select NO.
You will need a 16 digit key number handy as it will ask that. Answer questions such as language and date and time zone. It will ask you what partition to put windows on. Delete all partitions by following directions on screen. Then you will need to respond yes to do you want to format your computer, and your computer will load the OS, and you will have to hit "Ok" and agree to the EULA.
When the OS is loaded, you will need to reactivate Windows, and you will also need to get all the Windows updates (bug fixes). You will have to reinstall all software, such as games, CD burn software, Open Office, etc. Completing this process will take a couple hours or so. To do it faster, and better, use an open source Operating system such as kubuntu, at www.kubuntu.org, and you will be online in 5 minutes instead of hours for Windows.

Answer 3

You are going to have to tell us what operating system you are trying to install.

Assuming it is XP, you should only have to run the installation like you normally would. Then when it shows you what drives that have OS's installed on them, you can just delete, repartition and reformat from that part of the installation.

If it is an older OS (older than WIN2000) then you are going to have to get a boot disk to format the drive, or use partition magic or some other partitioning software.