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If you have 2 hard drives how do you reformat both hard drives?

In: Hard Disk Drives [Edit categories]

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First of all, I'm assuming that your hard drives are listed in My Computer as Drive C: and perhaps Drive E:, respectively. With the computer running, you need to place your operating system (OS) disk (or your restore or recovery disk) in the CD tray, close it and restart the computer. Follow the on-screen instructions on how to totally reinstall your OS, including wiping out all files on the hard drive. Once this drive, Drive C:, has been reformatted, you need to shut down and unplug the computer, open up the tower on your computer, (IMPORTANT: be sure to ground your wrists to prevent damage to components from static electricity)unplug the wide ribbon and power cord from your primary drive (Drive C:) and plug them into your secondary drive, after unplugging the same cables from your secondary drive, so your computer will now recognize your secondary drive as Drive C: also, just as it did the first drive you reformatted. Once this is done, proceed with tha same instructions above to reformat the secondary drive. Once you have the secondary hard drive reformatted, shut down and unplug the computer, open it up again, and switch your hard drive connections back to their original configuration. Start your computer and open up My Computer, check and open Drives C & E to make sure that each drive was formatted correctly.
elmrfudd

New Answer

If you are running win xp you don't have to open your machine. Just click start>control panel>double click administrator tools then click computer managment then click disk management you should see all your drives, right click on your slave drive.NOT the one that says system!click delete partition a warning window will pop up click ok. Now right click on that same drive again then click make new partition make that partition primary then right click the same drive again and click format.Make sure you are doing all this to the right drive it should have the drive letter that you assigned it on install usually D: or E: DO NOT click on your C drive.And remember you are going to lose all data on that drive. After format is complete the drive should say (healthy). Now close all windows insert your boot disk and restart your computer.Follow the onscreen instrutions.I hope this info helps.
stevenmass

First answer by Stevenmass. Last edit by Stevenmass. Contributor trust: 28 [recommend contributor ]. Question popularity: 78 [recommend question].

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