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How To Format A Hard Drive With Windows XP

July 16th, 2010

If your computer is displaying errors, contains viruses or it has any other type of problem, this might a HDD related problem and you should format the hard drive which you might think that it has problems. You can format the entire hard drive, this should be done if you want to install a fresh copy of Windows or you can choose to format only a specified secondary hard drive, which doesn’t require removing and re-installing the OS.

When you format a hard rive you should know that you will lose everything stored on it and you should create back-up CDs or DVDs of your most important photos, documents and other files that you consider valuable. Also formatting a drive is helpful when you want to install a fresh copy of Windows operating system, as if you do it on a formatted drive it will be much more stable and it will be also easier and faster to install.

Below you can find the steps you need to take for successfully formatting a hard drive in Windows XP :

How To Prepare For A Hard Drive Format

As i told you above, if you decide to format a hard drive you will lose all the data stored on it and you should back up every important data that you might need at a later time. Also, if you install a fresh copy of Windows XP, then you should know that you need all the installation discs for all programs and 3rd party hardware as you will need to re-install all hardware drivers and software applications after you re-install XP.
You should check the My Documents folder in Windows, as there is a common location for storing bookmarks and favorites from your web browsers, also you should check your desktop items and see which of them you might be needing.
All the data you want to save should be burned on a CD or DVD or you can move it to a removable hard drive, USB flash drive or on any other removable storage device.

How To Format A Secondary Hard Drive

First you need to right click the My Computer icon and click on ‘Manage’
Computer Management windows has been opened up. Click Storage and click it once ( is located at left hand side ), now double-click ‘Disk Management ( local ), is located at the right side.
In this new window, look at the lower part of the main frame and you’ll all the hard drive. A line is a different drive and every box on a line is a partition contained within the drive, the partition is a part of a drive. You can have multiple partitions if you want to store data in separated areas of a disk, but most users prefer to use a single partition per drive.
Now you need to delete all partitions which are located on the drive that you want to format. Right-click the partition and select ‘Delete Partition’ and confirm deletion.
Now you need to repeat the same actions for all the existent partitions or if you want to format that single partition skip this step and go to the next without the need to delete the remained partitions.
Now you should see a black bar near to the drive that you want to format that displays ‘Unallocated’ text under the drive size. Now you have to right click it and choose ‘New Partition’ which will open the New Partition Wizard.
When the Partition Wizard appears you have to click next. On the next screen you have to select ‘Primary Partition’ and click next button. Set the drives size equal with the maximum limit and now click next. On the next screen you’ll see that the PC chose the letter drive, but if you want to change that you should click it and in the drop-down menu you can select a different drive letter, now you can click next.
Now the New Partition Wizard will ask you if you want to format the partition and what format should it have. You need to choose the ‘NTFS’ partition type because it is much more secure and faster than FAT32. Now you should leave the ‘Allocation unit size’ as Default. In the ‘Volume Label’ you can type in the name of your newly created drive. Now, if the drive is new you should check the ‘Perform a quick format’ box or if you used it before you should leave it unchecked. You should leave ‘Enable file and folder compression’ box unchecked and now you can click the next button. After it displays the next screen you can click Finish.
Now the wizard will start formatting the drive, please note that on older or large hard drive this task might last a while longer. You shouldn’t close ‘Computer Management’ until the format is complete. When the ‘Formatting’ word changes to ‘Healthy’, it is located under the drive’s size, it means that the format is completed and you should see the drive letter and the drive’s name. Everything is OK.
Now the hard drive is formatted and you can use it freely.

How To Format And Install From A Windows XP CD

Here you can learn how to format the hard drive and install a fresh copy Windows XP from its CD, please create back-ups of the files that you don’t want to lose. First, you need to insert the Windows XP installation CD and restart the PC.
Your computer is now restarting and when it will display the ‘Press any key to boot from CD’ ( it is a white text over the black screen ), please press any key and go to the next step.
A blue screen is displayed and files are loaded. After loading is complete you should see a few options and the one that interests us the most is the ‘Press ENTER to set up Windows XP’ option, which requires you to press the Enter or Return key and continue with installing Windows XP.
Now you should see the screen which asks you where to install Windows XP, also you can delete old volumes and format drives. The box which you can see in the bottom half of your monitor displays all drives and the partitions existent on hard drive. By using the arrow keys you need to select and highlight the C: partition, after you did this you need to press the ‘D’ key ( if it displays ‘Unpartitioned Space’ and you don’t have C or D partitions you should skip this step). When the next screen appear you have to press ‘L’ key to complete the partition deleting process.
Now you see the screen where you select the location of where to install Windows. You should see an entry that states ‘Unpartitioned space xxxxMB’, select it and press the ‘C’ to create a new partition on that drive. On the next screen you can select its size. Its size is by default the maximum, if you want to keep this press ENTER.
Now you will be taken to the where to install Windows page and you should see ‘C: Partition1 [ New ( Raw ) ] xxxxxMB’, select it and press the Enter key.
At the next screen you can select what file system should the drive be based. You should select NTFS because it is much more secure and faster than the FAT. If the drive you currently install windows on is new, you should choose an option that ends with ( Quick ) or if the drive is older you should choose NFTS simply. To select which file system format you want, use the arrow keys and press the Enter key.
Now formatting is is progress and after it is completed Windows will start installing.

So, this is how you format a secondary hard drive directly from Windows and also with the Windows XP installation CD. Feel free to post any questions or thanks into the comments field.