If you decide to format a hard drive, it's important to understand the steps needed to completely wipe the drive of any information. The "C" drive is typically the drive that contains the system information, and all information is lost when it is formatted. The drive can be formatted using a bootable floppy disk or the Windows CDROM disc, which is also a boot media device.
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When completely formatting and deleting information from a hard drive, the first step in the process is to have a boot disk. For those who have a floppy disk drive in the computer, creating a boot disk involves formatting the floppy and using DOS to create a system boot disk. To do this, insert the floppy disk into the drive. Open the DOS command prompt. From the command prompt, type "format a: /s". This command tells the computer to format the floppy disk and load the system files necessary to boot. This only takes a few minutes.
For those who do not have a floppy drive, the Windows CD-ROM that is used to install the operating system contains the necessary boot files. You can also burn these files to a separate CD-ROM, but it is unnecessary. Whichever method you use to create a boot disk, ensure that it is placed in the drive and then restart the computer. For those with a floppy disk, the computer boots directly to DOS. If you use the Windows CD-ROM, it boots to the Windows recovery console. Click the "F8" button and then select "R." The operating system will ask for the username and password of the administrator, and then you are given a DOS prompt.
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Once in a DOS prompt, you are able to format the drive. Type the following command into the DOS prompt: "format c:" (without the quotes).
The computer will give you a warning letting you know that that all information will be deleted. Additionally, to speed up the process, you can also type in "format c: /q". This does a quick format of the drive and takes less time. If you plan to reinstall the operating system, or you are selling the computer to another user, it's best to use the "format c:" option and wait the extra few minutes. Formatting the hard drive can take several minutes, depending on the size of the drive. Once formatted, you are able to install a new operating system or use the drive as a secondary storage unit.
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