How to Reformat Your Computer

Learn how to reformat your computer easily to get rid of viruses and increase speed by eliminating unwanted processes for good.

Things You'll Need

• Secondary restore hard drive partition
• Operating System installation cd if partition is not available

Instructions

1. If your computer comes with a recovery partition, you'll neet to restart your computer. When you boot it back up, wait for a black screen to appear. It will have a 'system restore' option or something similar by typing f10. Do this when it asks for it. If you do not have this feature, you will need to insert a cd with the operating system on it for a fresh install.

2. You will now enter a setup to reformat your computer. Reformating deletes your Windows file and replaces it with a brand new one, ridding all viruses on the computer. You can even keep all of your files! Follow the guidlines to reformating your computer. Automatically it should be set not to delete your files, so if you want to, click when asked, or set it up to not delete them.

3. It will take about 15 minutes+ to reformat the hard drive. When it's done formatting, it will enter a basic setup asking what location you live in, etc. To find your files, go to my computer - Local Disk C - documents and settings - and click the old name that you had from before. You will be able to access your my documents folder and your desktop folder here.

4. Be careful to select the right kind of installation if you wish to keep your files. Newer versions of Windows might store the old files in different places so be sure to look around.

Tips & Warnings

• Reformatting it without saving the files will delete everything!