HOW DO YOU FORMAT A HARD DRIVE PROPERLY?

[Guest_imported]

this may seem a stupid question, but i need to know how to do it properly. i may have a virus so i need to get rid of everything and reinstall. i believe i have all the disks needed to reinstall. are there any do's and dont's?

cheers.

max.

 

[Scotsdude]

DO - check that you have no option but to reformat and
reinstall
DO - back up all data that is not affected by the virus.
DO - make sure that you have all the drivers for various
things such as modems, sound cards, video cards etc

Then:
(95/98/Me) Use a boot disk to boot into DOS.
use the command FORMAT C: to wipe your drive.
(if you have partitions, use FDISK to delete them and then recreate them)
Once you've reformatted, got to the CD drive and type setup and your away.....

(2000/XP)
shove yer CD in and boot from that. Select new installation, and tell it to format over the original installation.

Scotsdude

 

[MA5]

Hi
You say; you may have a virus.
If you are not sure it is a very drastic action to take, isn’t it?
If however you do have a virus, what is it called or at least what is its behaviour?
Do not reformat or Fdisk yet until you know what you are dealing with.
Formatting might not solve your problem.

Good luck

 

[dinosnake]

If you have a virus first try to get rid of it. There is no such thing as a non-removable virus - it just depends on how good AND how tenacous you are.

If you really want to go that far (1)Boot with a floppy:
(a) created before the infection
(b) created from another computer, known not to be infected with any viruses

and make sure you write-protect the floppy (very important), or boot from a CD. FDISK the drive & wipe all partitions, reboot, FDISK & create new partitions, reboot, format with DOS, install.

If you don't remove all partitions and rebuild (or hex-edit the boot sector by hand ) any boot sector viruses will still be there. It'll all be for naught. Your mileage may vary...