Reformatting & Installing Windows

I know many people before has asked how to do this properly. I have taken the time to make a type of walkthrough of this! I hope this helps and is usefull. If you have any questions to parts of this walkthrough then please post!


Reformatting Your Hard Drive and Installing Windows 9x/ME

The sequence is as follows:

a. Save anything you wish to keep;
b. For Windows 9x/ME: Using a “Boot Disk” to access the dos prompt, reformat your drive(s);
c. Install your operating system (Windows);
d. Install all your other programs.

1. Make absolutely sure you’ve saved any files you need to keep. The more common ones are:

a. Bookmarks or Favourites;
b. Address Book and any emails you want to keep; and
c. Music, pictures etc.

2. To start you will need a “Boot Disk” with CDRom drivers.

a. For the system to recognize your boot disk you first need to go into the “Bios Setup” to tell your computer to boot from your floppy disk drive “A”. To do this, reboot your system and while it begins to boot, hit your delete key until it takes you to the Bios Setup Window. Change the boot sequence to begin with your “A” drive. Save the changes and reboot with the boot disk now in the “A” drive.

b. After the boot disk does its thing you’re ready to reformat your drive. Type “format C:” if C is your hard drive. A warning will come up telling you that you will lose all information on the drive. Say ok to continue. It will take approx. 12 – 15 minutes to format a 40Gig hard drive. Once completed, you will be asked for a volume name. This will simply be the name of your hard drive when you see it in Windows. Call it anything you’d like.

3. Your now ready to install your operating system.

i. At the dos prompt type “CD D” to go to your CDRom drive.
ii. Put in your Windows CDRom and type “setup.exe” Windows will now begin to install. It will take approx. 40 minutes to complete.

4. Once Windows is installed, you can begin to install all your programs and drivers.


Reformatting Your Hard Drive and Installing Windows XP

The sequence is as follows:

a. Save anything you wish to keep;
b. For Windows XP: Boot directly from your Windows CD, and format the drives during setup
c. Install your operating system (Windows);
d. Install all your other programs.

See Step 1 above.

2. To start you will need your bootable Windows XP CD. For the system to recognize your Windows XP CD while booting, you first need to go into the “Bios Setup” to tell your computer to boot from your CD-ROM drive “X” (replace that with your CD-ROM drive letter). To do this, reboot your system, and while it begins to boot, hit your delete key until it takes you to the Bios Setup Window. Change the boot sequence to begin with your “X” drive. Save the changes and reboot with the Windows XP CD now in the “X” drive.

3. Windows Setup will automatically initialize, and you will be given an option to format your hard drive during the setup process. Microsoft recommends formatting drives using the NTFS file system. You may choose to use either NTFS or FAT32. Choose to format C: if that is your primary drive on which Windows was previously installed.

4. Your now ready to install your operating system. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the setup process.

5. Once Windows is installed, you can begin to install all your programs and drivers.

Post modified by NetRyder

good guide... but doing "format c:" from a boot disk is only going to format the harddrive as FAT32 and not NTFS?

I just reboot the PC with the XP cd in, let it boot up... delete the existing partition and re-add it and then format as NTFS.

Good Info here

Accually, at a part in the windows setup, it asks you if you want to leave the current or switch to ntfs.

The walkthrough is great for 9x/ME, but it's easier to just boot from the CD when reinstalling XP. You will be given the option to format the drive as NTFS directly rather than having to format once as FAT32 and then reformatting as NTFS.

This thread has been stuck

Originally posted by bman™

2. To start you will need a “Boot Disk” with CDRom drivers. A boot disk made for Win98 or WinXP will work on any operating system.

Click to expand...

You can do everthing from the Windows XP cd. Do you think there are any advantages in formatting from a boot disk?

Re: Re: Re: Reformatting & Installing Windows

Originally posted by Enyo
bman recommended that only for 9x/ME installs

Click to expand...

Yes, but according to bman's tutorial, we need to first boot from a floppy, format the drive as FAT32, then boot from the XP CD and install Windows.
What yoyo and I are pointing out is that there is absolutely no need for a boot floppy when installing XP. You can boot right off the CD, format the drives as NTFS volumes, and install Windows.

In other words, step 3b can go right after step 1 when installing XP.

When installing win9x there is one more step.

When at the cd rom - D:\ in the dos prompt you must then navigate to the (CD) folder where the setup files are stored.

For '95 it is win95.
For '98 it is win98.
Foe ME it is win9x.
Not sure about 2000.

So it ends up looking like this> D:\win95\. From there type setup & away it goes.

Reformatting & Reinstalling are 2 different things. Reinstalling replaces damaged files and restores everything back to normal, keeps your files intact. Reformatting takes everything off and thats when you reinstall windows because after the reformat is done there is nothing on your harddrive.

Originally posted by bman™


2. To start you will need a “Boot Disk” with CDRom drivers. A boot disk made for Win98 or WinXP will work on any operating system.

Click to expand...

Actually, this is not true. A Win98 Bootdisk will not be able to read NTFS partitions, so if you're C Drive is NTFS, you'll need to use a XP or 2K installation cdrom.

Also, does a WinXP bootdisk exist? I don't see where you can make one in WinXP, format option doesn't have "copy system files" feature and the sys command in command prompt no longer works.

Another thing I want to mention is that different bios uses different keys to gain access, they are F1, F2, ESC

I prefer using my CDROM as the first boot device and boot it off the CD to format and install Win2K and XP. Instead of a floppy with cdrom drivers.

With a larger Hard Drive the only file option that Window allows is NTFS. The Fat 32 option is not there and if you want a Fat 32 partition you have to use a Windows 98 or 98Se floppy and when you do it doesn't report the correct Drive size, but after the install and everything is said and done it will show the correct Hard Drive size. Dobe

I find it easier for me to just use a 98 boot floppy to delete the partition, recreate the partition, put the cd in and use it to format the drive to NTFS with xp...

It's the easiest way for me, all reformating does is rewrite the info to your computer, it will not over write the essential files .. deleting the partition and recreating will clear everything, like already stated ..

also I have an 80 gig HD and never had wrong HD size listing with the 98 boot disk

if I have all of my pics andmusic and docs on one partition and my os is installed on another partition do I need to worry about my files when I reformat...

no, not as long as you only reformat the partition that the OS is on.

nice!

hi.....i´m having problems with my laptop.....sony vaio PCG-FRV25, i wanted to change from windows xp homo into Pro....i formated my hd, boot from cd and started installing windows xp pro, like many other times evereything looked fine, but when making the first reboot from installation the laptop gives me an error at the prompt screen, OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND....i got into C-Mos or Bios....and changed to boot from Optical disk, floppy disk, network, and hard disk drive but Neither of them seem to work......looks like my hd can´t be recognized,....i need some help to boot my system.....any one???

With Win2K and XP, you're better off booting directly from the CD. You can delete existing partitions, then create new partitions and format them with the NTFS file system. If you can't boot from a CD with Win2k, you'll need to make several floppies to load the setup program for Win2k, then install that OS from the CD.

I know with some OEM versions of Win98SE and ME, you can boot those from a CD to reformat and reinstall the OS.

Hey Emdy,... some times not all Xp let you boot in cd because they are Upgrades and not Original system (That happend to me)

Netryder & Enyo, you have explained it well. I am now not sure how to change it do explain it. Could one of you please do it so!
Thanks !

I was trying to format and install ME a week or so ago, and my floppy drive crapped out. I took a look around and found this tutorial for creating a bootable ME cd.

http://www.geocities.com/mark_ashworth1/me_boot/winmeboot.html