O/T computer technical question

[biss03]

If i were to format a hard drive, what does that do? Does it even wipe out the windows operating system? and how hard is it to reinstall windows if it does?

 

thanks

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

What file system : fat32 or NTFS file system was on your hard disk .

How many partitions you had .

What partition you unformated .

have you made repartition (have you run fdisk after that )

If it was only OS or some important Cad-Cam or other data on it

What was your OS ?

Answer these spec. questions

 

Format des o not destroys data ,it only changes File allocation table .

Data can be restored .

Repartitionig also does not destroys data ,but it`s more tricky thing to do .

If you want to restore unformated partition or disk do not make writing operations on it !!!

 

I succesfully restored unformated ,couple of times formated and repartitioned disks .

I am not sure that you will be able to do it ,you better consider if you really need this action ,do you have enough knowledge and may be ask some PC guru near you to help you .

 

HTH

WTHH

Teh interleave 1

[TS53]

You will in fact erase everything, all data, operating system, all softwares, and all device drivers (for things like cd-rom, graphics card, sound card, monitor, etc).

If you need to reformat, make sure you have all the installation disks and drivers so you can reinstall everything so it will function again. Otherwise you may end up with a fancy papreweight!

Windows xp is a lot 'smarter' than the older versions in terms of recognizing hardware and finding drivers, but you need to know what software and hardware you have along with where the drivers can be found.

I hope this gives you soem idea.

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

You can regard format as a full destroy of all OS (if this partition has it ) ,boot manager (the same ) and all data .

If you are not computer guru (or at least know it rather good )you have good chances to loose all you had in it before .

BTW ,Why do you need to reformat at all ?

Format is not a magic action and a last resort .

BTW#2 if you have boot virus and you make format not with clean (and closed from writing ) boot disket it will stay after you reformate your disk !

 

Teh I never reformat disks without a real need !

[Elad]

You should learn how to use norton ghost.

After installing a formatted computer, and updating all the drivers you should use ghost, and the next time you will decide to format, you will be able to restore your basic configuration using the ghost software in minutes.

[biss03]

Here's what i'm trying to do. A relative of mine has a laptop with windows ME (i know, i've tried convincing her to change it but she is a college student with limited funds). the computer is having problems with locking up and has all kinds of crap on it that doesn't belong but i'm not sure what needs to be there. so what i'd like to do is get the laptop back to its original state back when she bought it. she didn't have a firewall on it and she spent a ton of time online and i think some things were downloaded and are running in the background. Is there a better way to do it besides formatting the hard drive? i have the windows ME disk and all the other disks that came with the computer.

[Elad]

Dear Mr. Winnie the pooh.

 

When a pesron asks a basic question and from his question you see that he is not a computer guru, how come you give him an answer that he doesn't enen know what you are talking about (partition, unformat etc...)

 

A person with a basic knoledge has to know that after formatting he can FORGET what he had in his hard drives, and he sould be sure that this is what he wants to do and that he knows how to reinstall it again.

[mayday]

I would run fdisk to repartion,then format then put in the me disk and install or better yet upgrade to win2k or xp

 

its not that difficult. search the hard drive for fdisk.exe and format.exe and copy them to a floppy

[Elad]

Windows ME is a mistake of Microsoft!

You should format the laptop and install windows xp pro (or 2000,but xp is better).

Anyway, let a professional do it for you (it doesn't cost to much) and don't format it before you give it to him, there is a lot of information he will need before he will format (The network configurations etc...)

[Bullines]

biss03,

 

Sounds like that notebook has become overrun with spyware and other malware. Formatting the disk and reinstalling Windows would get rid of everything, both good and bad data. So if she has documents and such that she needs, she should back those up first.

 

Now I've never installed ME before (for a good reason) so I'm not sure if its installation is more like Windows 9x or Windows NT/2000/XP. The latter includes a part of the setup that allows you to format your hard disk prior to installing the OS. The former does not. If ME is like Win9x, get a blank floppy and use this to create a bootable ME floppy. Boot off of that floppy and run 'format C:' when you've booted to a command prompt. If there are other partitions on the drive, you can format those too. If you want to change the partition scheme, if you're comfortable, use FDISK beforehand. After your drive is ready, remove the floppy disk an insert the ME CD. Switch to the CD-ROM drive (maybe E?) and go into the (not sure about this) Winme direcotry (it's Win98 on the Windows 98 CD) and run setup.exe. Setup will start and just follow the prompts.

 

Once you're setup, please install a firewall and antivirus software, for the good of Internet users worldwide. She has limited funds? Here's free antivirus and free firewall.

 

But for ~$99, XP Home would be a worthy investment. Boot off it's CD, format and install. That's it HTH

 

 

quote:

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You will in fact erase everything, all data, operating system, all softwares, and all device drivers (for things like cd-rom, graphics card, sound card, monitor, etc).

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Not really.

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

Dear Mr Elad !

 

I always stand for truth .

You can do restore data after reformat and repartitioning and it not matters me who asks ,the truth is more important !

 

On all the other matters in this thread I`ll reply later

 

Regards

[Storkman]

I agree with Elad. Take it somewhere and let a professional do it. You will have a better chance of keeping all neccesary data that way. If you have never formatted before, it's better to try it on a computer that means nothing to anyone.

[Elad]

Dear mr. Winnie.

 

Always the truth...

You should replace your nick from winnie to Fox Mulder (unless you prefer Scully)

[biss03]

Bullines.. thanks a bunch for all the great information!! I just have a couple of questions to make sure i understand what i need to do:

 

1. the bootable floppy is going to be inserted into the drive before turning on PC, correct? will this bring up the command prompt where i'll be able to type : format "c"?

 

2. do i need to worry about the other partitions and schemes if they do exist? (are partitions other drive letters from the same hard drive? for example my pc at work has drive c and d.)

 

3. after formatting "C", do i shut down the pc before inserting the ME CD? will it bring up a command prompt in which i have to type E: to get to the cd drive to be able to find setup.exe?

 

4. finally, will all of this be done in a DOS setting?

 

once again thanks for all the help! i'm pretty sure i understand what to do but want to be sure before getting into it.

 

and i'll be sure to tell her to get a firewall this time to prevent this from happening again!

 

thanks again,

[biss03]

quote:

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But for ~$99, XP Home would be a worthy investment. Boot off it's CD, format and install. That's it HTH

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i'm going to talk to her about this too. will this erase all the crap i'm trying to get rid of too? if yes, this sounds like the better way to go.

[Bullines]

quote:

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1. the bootable floppy is going to be inserted into the drive before turning on PC, correct? will this bring up the command prompt where i'll be able to type : format "c"?

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Yup. But remember to do this AFTER you've backed up any files that she wants to keep. Remember that the command is format C:.

 

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2. do i need to worry about the other partitions and schemes if they do exist? (are partitions other drive letters from the same hard drive? for example my pc at work has drive c and d.)

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If her computer has a setup like this and there's no need to change it, formatting will not delete this. You can format the C parition from the command prompt that the boot floppy brings you to and then format the D partition later on from Windows when you have it installed.

 

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3. after formatting "C", do i shut down the pc before inserting the ME CD? will it bring up a command prompt in which i have to type E: to get to the cd drive to be able to find setup.exe?

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You don't have to. After the formatting of the C partition is complete, you could switch over to the CD-ROM drive. If it's E, you simply type E: and then press ENTER. Then you'll want to move into the installation directory. On Windows 98, it's called "Win98". Maybe on Windows ME, it's WinME? You can put the ME CD in any computer and have a look beforehand to be certain. You would then move into that directory with, say, typing this cd winme and hitting ENTER. Then inside that directory, the setup executable should be in there and you can run by simply typing setup and hitting ENTER.

 

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4. finally, will all of this be done in a DOS setting?

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The formatting stuff will be from an MS-DOS command prompt. Once you've run the setup.exe program, you'll have a user interface that you can use...it's like a wizard (lots of clicking NEXT buttons).

 

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i'm going to talk to her about this too. will this erase all the crap i'm trying to get rid of too? if yes, this sounds like the better way to go.

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Yup, this would be the better way to go. You can boot off of the WinXP CD and it'll give you the option to format your hard drive and/or create/delete partitions; no need for a boot floppy. Remember that if you delete a partition, all of it's data goes with it. Well, technically no, but for all intents and purposes, yes it deletes all files.

 

HTH.

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

Gentle humans !

 

A quizzz :

How many primary partitions can you have on your Pc hard drive ?

 

Teh primary partition

[Bullines]

quote:

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A quizzz :

How many primary partitions can you have on your Pc hard drive ?

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AFAIK, four is the max per drive that the MFT will allow. Unless there's an extended one in the mix on that drive. Then it's three, I think. Where's my cookie?

[biss03]

thanks a ton bullines!! This should be a piece of cake with all your help!

 

thanks again

[Bullines]

No prob. Treat it like a fun project

[JAMMAN]

If you know how to get into your bios you can set the computer to boot from the cd rom and can skip the 3 1/2 floppy boot disk.

 

XP eventhough I'm boycotting it is the easiest install of all the os's.

 

Just like Bullines I have never installed ME. I don't know of anyone who has a smoothe running computer with ME installed.

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

Yep !

You got it ,Bullines .

 

And in every one of them I can put it`s own Windows XP and change bootable flag(partition active ) .(crazy ,but possible thing )

BTW microsoft extended partition is also primary ,so you can have Microsoft primary ,extended and two non-microsoft primaries.

 

~~~~~~~~~

Where's my cookie?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I can dedicate a verse to great Bullines as a price ,yet I am a bit scary (naturally ) .

 

Regards

[biss03]

working on computers is fun to me. i was worried though that i was getting in over my head on this one but i really wanted to help out my cousin. she is in her third year of college studying to be a teacher who works with special needs kids. we need more teachers willing to work in that field so i wanted to try helping her out as much as possible. she called around and most people wanted way too much money to do this.

 

thanks again!!!

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

Biss03 !

~~~~~~~~~~

working on computers is fun to me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

No offence , but to learn computers on someone else PC is a great idea ! J/k

 

Too bad but I learned on my own !

Seriously you need to read some basic books before doing anything ,just 2-3 days of reading can save you a lot of pain afterwards !

 

Teh Doominant .

[Bullines]

quote:

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If you know how to get into your bios you can set the computer to boot from the cd rom and can skip the 3 1/2 floppy boot disk.

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You can boot off of the WinME CD like this, but if it's like the Win95/98 CDs, you cannot format drives from Windows Setup, hence the need for a boot floppy to prep the drive.

 

Windows NT/2000/XP do allow you to paritition/format from their Setups, and put the Windows95/98 (and maybe ME?) Setups to shame

 

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she called around and most people wanted way too much money to do this.

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Taking your computer into shops like these is like taking your car into a garage. If they feel like you're not familiar with the inner-workings, most of them will try to rip you off