# Formatting in XP

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-in-xp/167877>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 10, 2003, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-in-xp/167877 "2003-04-10T20:11:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Electronic\_Chaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Electronic\_Chaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electronic_Chaos)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-in-xp/167877/1 "2003-04-10T20:11:44Z")

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So spring’s here and I figured I’d give my hard drive a fresh new start. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out exactly how to format my hard drive in XP…creating a boot disk and copying [format.com](http://format.com) over to it doesn’t work…is there a way to do it by booting from the XP CD? (i’m using NTFS, so I don’t really want to boot from a 95 or 98 floppy, unless that’s the only option…)

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**Author:** ![Toddly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@Toddly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toddly)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-in-xp/167877/2 "2003-04-10T20:26:29Z")

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I am pretty sure that you can do it from the CD. Make sure that the boot sequence on the computer is set first to boot from CD. There are a list of installation options and one of them is to install over an existing Windows partition.

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**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-in-xp/167877/3 "2003-04-10T20:26:56Z")

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Yes. If you boot from the XP CD and choose to install Windows on your existing partition it will give you the choice of formatting or leaving the current file system intact.

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**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-in-xp/167877/4 "2003-04-10T20:28:53Z")

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As said above. XP is actually quite friendly in formatting from the CD.

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**Author:** ![Electronic\_Chaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Electronic\_Chaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electronic_Chaos)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formatting-in-xp/167877/5 "2003-04-10T20:34:19Z")

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Alright that should do it then! I’m off to make a clean install…If you guys don’t see me around here for days, then I probably royally effed everything up!