I want to get a fairly regular schedule of reformatting my hardrive (it’s been 7 months, though I think I’ll do it about once a year) now that I have a burner to backup any important information (ie documents, music, and pictures).
I don’t have a Windows XP CD. For obvious reasons, this is a problem.
In fact, even if I had it, I wouldn’t know how to reformat… could someone walk me through the process?
It would be a problem even if you had the CD. AFAIK XP has some kine of protection against reinstalling on a second PC which also means reinstalling it on the same PC. I know there are cracks for getting around that but am not familiar with them. In any event do not format your hard drive without an OS CD.
So, you don’t even know how to reformat, but for some reason you think that low level tinkering with your computer is a good idea? Some people and what they do with computers scares me sometimes…
Reformatting the drive is easy. Just boot from a win98 floppy and format the bugger. Now your drive has been wiped clean of all info it previously had on it, and it’s ready for you to put an operating system onto it. If you are installing windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, you just put in the CD and install it. If you install XP you install it, then you try to do the automatic registration from microsoft and it will probably fail because that copy of XP has been installed before, so you get to call microsoft and explain to them that you reformatted and are re-installing (damn they really screwed us consumers up this time) and then you register XP and you’re done.
But you don’t have an operating system CD, so you’re screwed.
Forgive me for asking the obvious, but why don’t you have an XP CD?
engineer: Presumably because his computer came with an OEM-installed OS.
Don’t most OEM computers that don’t come with a actual Windows CD instead come with a restore CD? If you have one of those, that will work. I did it on my old computer (Win XP), and the restore disc had all the Win XP files on it.
As long as you religiously run scan disk and defrag and never ever open unknown attachments. I mean never ever open unknown attachments. You should never have to reformat. It is only a last ditch effort.
I don’t know anything to help the OP, but aside from any actual performance benefits you get from formatting, it’s also a lot of fun! It’s a new chance to be organized about your file structure. Installing programs and arranging your icons and Desktop appearance is a great way to spend an afternoon. I love seeing the window that says I have 80% of my hard drive free, even if it is only once. And my favorite part is picking the drive label. It’s like a vanity tag, but with 11 characters! I imagine that if you had to do it for performance reasons, it could be a drag, but the OP seems more like they’re in it for the thrill.
Achernar: The hard disk on my ME-RedHat dual-boot machine is called Abraxas.
engineer, I hardly think my lack of knowledge of reformatting reflects my computer skill. Merely lack of experience in that area.
Now, for the why I’m reformatting… Generally for two reasons. First, to get rid of the many files I no longer need/use, and which I am far too lazy to actually delete.
Second, Archernar hit it right on the head 
I als like to reformat and reinstall once in a while to get rid of crap but it takes a couple of months before everything is back to snuff as I have to reinstall all software, patches etc.
In response to the OP I would say that if you have a legitimate reason for not having the disk you should be able to get help from whoever you bought it from as they should replace it for a nominal fee. If you have no legitimate reason you should not be asking us to help you, should you?
It’s legitimate in the sense that I didn’t give it away or lose it in a horrible burning accident… but it just didn’t come with the computer. I think Boscibo might be right, I’d have to check to see if I had a restore CD, though. Thanks everyone!
Too lazy eh? Let me fill in some details so you can decide which is easier, deleting or reformatting:
FORMAT
MSCDEX and a driver for your CD drive
Autoexec and config files set up for MSCDEX and your CD drive
If it’s a new drive, you also need FDISK.
When installing Windows 95 or 98 I also like to have XCOPY (which also needs XCOPY32) on the boot floppy so that I can easily copy the CD to the hard drive using xcopy /s, then install from the hard drive. That way whenever the system needs a file, it just loads it from the hard drive instead of asking you for the CD.
I also like to have EDIT on the disk, just in case I want to monkey around with autoexec and config files.
Boot from the floppy. Make sure that you can access your CD drive from DOS.
Hi Opal!
Type FORMAT C: and follow the on screen prompts. Everything on your C drive is now GONE. A true computer geek can probably get most of it back at this point, but for the average user you’ve just lost everything on the drive. This is now the time when you hope all of your backup copies of your important stuff are good.
Run SETUP from the CD. If you have some sort of restore CD, then do whatever it requires. If it’s a regular windows CD, you will answer a million questions and it will reboot your computer a whole bunch of times, and an hour or so later Windows will be done installing.
Install drivers for all of the bits of hardware that Windows didn’t recognize. If this is a store bought system then all of these files should be on floppy disks or CDs that came with the computer. If not, then you can usually download the driver off of the internet. Having a second computer that can access the internet really helps at this point if you’ve forgotten an important driver.
Apply all of your custom settings, like screen resolution, any themes, etc.
Set up your network so that you can access the internet. Depending on your ISP you may have to install software to do this.
Install all of your software programs.
Copy all of the data from your backup CDs (or tape, or whatever you have your data on) to the hard drive.
(for XP only) Call microsoft and activate your software. If by some miracle you get to talk to a real live human being, bitch them out for requiring this step.
(optional) Install any service packs or download any update files that you deem necessary. Some people keep their system completely up to date with the latest and greatest from Microsoft. I find a stable version and stick with it. The advantage of staying up to date with Microsoft is you get the latest security patches and such (for an operating system known to have quite a few security holes). The disadvantage is that occasionally Microsoft breaks things with their patches. They can quite easily leave you without a functioning system after installing an update.
On my work computer, this is basically a 2 day process, with a majority of the time spend re-installing and reconfiguring software. At home, I can do it in two evenings, or maybe one long day during the weekend. Being a computer weenie, I tend to have a lot more complicated software to install than the average user. On the other hand, I also have quite a bit of experience and can go through all of the steps required faster than the average user.
Personally, I find it easier to just delete files. YMMV.
However, since you are basically doing it for fun, I would strongly recommend having access to the internet from another system, so that you can download drivers as needed and ask for help when something doesn’t go right. Also, you will need the CD. There’s no way around that. If you have a restore CD, it may do a lot of the above steps for you, in addition to re-installing the operating system.
Ah ha! I found the restore CD. Okay, well, on the CD it says that I should backup all important files before using, so I assume that means it deletes them. Right?