How to Erase & Reformat a Hard Drive

When nasty viruses or spyware affect a machine, sometimes it's just better to format the drive and start over. Formatting a hard drive on a Windows computer is completed using a floppy disk or CD and a few command prompt steps. This completely removes any information on the hard drive, so it's important to backup any documents.

Things You'll Need

• Blank floppy disk or CD

Instructions

1. Back up your documents and installation files. Once the hard drive is formatted, these files are lost, so use a CDROM or DVD writer to save important documents. You can also use an external hard drive.

2. Insert the floppy disk or CD into the drive. Click the Windows "Start" button and select "Run." Type "cmd" in the textbox and click "Ok." This opens a command prompt window.

3. Type "format a: /s" into the command prompt. This formats the floppy disk with the necessary files to format the hard drive. Leave the floppy disk in the drive and restart the computer. The computer will boot from the disc to a DOS prompt.

4. Type "format c: /s" into the command prompt. This erases and formats the internal hard drive of the computer. Once the hard drive is formatted, you can choose to install a new operating system. The format process and new installation start users with default options in Windows.

References

• mahalo.com