How do you reformat your Windows computer?

Answer

With Windows 98 and Windows ME, usually you will have a copy of your operating system on a CD ROM. With Windows XP, usually you will not.

If you have XP, when you first get your computer make sure you learn about using system restore, in case you get problems needing to go back. To reformat, you may first have to go out and spend to get a CD ROM copy of XP first, if you do not already have it. Some folks say you can get it from Microsoft, but try (LOLuck) getting thru to them.

Before reformatting make sure you have access to a CD ROM with which to reinstall your operating system. Create a boot floppy startup disk which has Window 98 System files before you reformat.

Install the boot floppy into A: drive, then restart your computer. When it reboots from the floppy, use the format command to reformat the C: drive. From the A: command line, type FORMAT C:/ S, which allows booting from the C drive, when the system files are put onto C.

Sometimes this is not enough to get a new reformat. You may get a message which says there is a corrupted drive partition, in which case you must first use the FDISK command to create new partition on the drive.

First answer by Anthony Lamberti. Last edit by DJ Craig. Contributor trust: 852 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 803 [recommend question]

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