How to Reformat a Laptop

Reformat a laptop is fairly easy especially if you have the recovery cd.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Laptop
• Recovery CD
• External storage device for backup
• Operating System

1. If you have the recovery cd, you can just pop-in the CD, select the reformat option and the installation process will continue automatically. Some laptop might have a special partition in the drive contains the operating system, drivers, etc. in case you want to reformat your laptop without the CD.
2. If you don't have the recovery CD, you usually can request one from the manufacturer. Otherwise, if you want to do a clean install, make sure you download all the drivers for your laptop, this may includes: motherboard, chipset, graphic card, sound card, modem, network card. Once you do that, put in the OS CD and start installing.
3. If you decided to do a clean install without the recovery CD, it would be best to create partition on your harddrive first, so you can have dedicated partition for operating system and backup. The next time you want to reformat your harddrive, you can just reformat that particular partition ex. C:\
4. After the reformatting process finished and you have installed a new clean OS. Install drivers one by one and restart when it's required. Try to do it in order from basic function -> secondary ex. motherboard, chipset, graphic, sound, modem, networking, etc.
5. Install back all programs that you might need. If you already backup the installation programs or have the installation CDs handy, you can do this pretty fast.
6. Rearrange the look and customize your new operating system, refer to the screenshot you have taken earlier before the reformatting process begin if you want to get the same look and feel.

Tips & Warnings

• Make copy of your recovery CD
• Download/Copy all drivers required by your laptop before reformatting your computer
• Keep track of all the program installed and what you need after reformatting and keep the program installation file in an external storage device
• You can boot directly from the CD when your computer start by setting it up in the BIOS (usually F1 when your computer just start) in the boot-up order.
• In Windows, F8 can bring more boot menu selection: safe mode, without networking, dos prompt, etc.
• Make screenshot of your desktop and start menu programs so you arrange your computer and get the same feel and looks again after you reformat your computer.
• Be sure to backup your files, once you format your laptop, all data will be gone!
• If you are unsure about reformating your entire laptop and something not working right, try to do recovery first instead of reformatting.
• Store all your cd-keys in a safe place. You might not be able to reformat your OS or reinstall certain programs if you don't have your cd-keys!