Posted by ShowerShoe on August 06, 19100 at 18:53:13:
In Reply to: Erasing a hard drive! posted by Heather on August 03, 19100 at 13:23:04:
: I have an old computer and i want to erase my hard drive and reinstall windows and microsoft word so i can at least use my computer for typing papers for school. If anyone out there knows how to do this, please email me with directions on how to do so!
I'm no expert but since I didn't see any other reply's I'm better than nothing. First you have to make a "Boot Disk". This disk must have the file "format.com" on it. It might not hurt to have the fdisk.exe file also. Boot your Puter from the boot disk, after you get to the A:\, simpley type this syntax format c:/s, and then answer yes when prompted if you want to continue. It may give you a warning, somthing about not having enough room for the unformatting info but just say yes you want to continue. If the drive has more than one partition then you would want to format the extended partitions by typing format d: or what ever the other drive letter may be. or delete them and create your own partitions using fdisk. Most hard drives will only have a "C" drive. If the drive is compressed you will have to decompress the drive before formatting any of the compressed partitions. you should use the same program , [usually doublespace or drivespace],to decompress the drive.
Compressed drives have a Host drive which is normally labeled as H:\. Hope I helped...