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A hard disk drive in computing is a type of
storage device made up of hard disk platters, a spindle, read and write heads
read and write arms, electrical motors, and integrated electronics contained
inside an airtight enclosure.
Now you know what the hard drive is. Let's
stick to the point and start with the information on the title of this article.
How to format a hard disk drive....
Step 2...
First of all, you should have a reason if you
really want to learn how to format a hard drive. But don't forget that
formatting a hard drive does NOT permanently delete your data!
Of course, when you format your hard drive you
think that the data is really deleted, but that is not the case.
The fact is that the data you have "deleted"
can be restored. Nonetheless, you should not experiment with formatting a hard
drive because you never know what may happen. Of course, it also depends on the
software you use, for example, there are such products that will permanently
delete the data you want and then you can continue the process of how to format
a hard drive.
Step 3...
In fact there is nothing so difficult in it.
You first need to decide what operating system you intend to load after
formatting a hard drive.
It is best and easiest to use a boot disk for
that Operating System, such as MS Dos6.2 or Windows95b or Windows98SE, 2000, XP.
You will need the proper Windows95/98 XP boot disk (Floppy or CD) in order to
load these operating systems on the computer, else it will reject loading due to
the wrong Operating System on the computer.
Step 4...
Then you will have to insert your boot disk in
bootable CD or floppy drive and start the computer.
Note: from Huntly Computer
Services: Windows XP and 2000 differs you can format from installation CD
following procedures are for 95, 98 and 98se
Once the system has completed booting and an A:
prompt appears. You will need to type format C: /s and then press Enter. The
function of this command is to tell the system to format your "C" drive and when
it is finished to copy the system files to the drive.
The "/s" switches for "System". You can format
a different drive this way by using a different drive letter.
Step 5...
After that you will see on the screen the
following text: "WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK DRIVE C: WILL BE LOST!
Proceed with Format (Y/N)?" and if you really want to continue, type [Y] and
then press Enter.
Your screen should display the size of your
drive and a countdown in percentage of formatting completed. Depending on your
computer's speed and the size of the drive it can take from a few minutes to
over 15 minutes.
When it reaches 100% complete, you will see a
new message: FORMAT COMPLETE. SYSTEM TRANSFERRED. This message is to indicate
that the files required to boot your computer from the hard drive have been
copied from the floppy to the hard drive.
The computer can now boot from the hard drive
without a boot disk in the floppy drive.
The last message that will appear on your
screen is the following: "Volume label (11 characters, ENTER for none)?" You can
either press any key to continue, or simply to press Enter. And now, you can
finally begin to load your Operating System.
Keep in mind that you can receive an error
message, which says "insufficient memory to load system files". If you do
receive such message, do not worry. It is caused by the lack of a memory manager
loaded at boot and your PC can only access the first 1mg of ram memory.
You can handle this situation with two options.
The first one is to omit the /s switch when formatting. You should do it by
typing this: FORMAT C: and then press Enter. Then when the format is complete,
manually add the system files to your hard drive by using this command: SYS C:
and press Enter again.
The second solution is to load a memory manager
in order to overcome this issue. If you don't have any you can easily download
one from one of the million sites on the Internet.
Step 6...
You see, we have finally reached the end of How
To Format A Hard Drive. and consequently – the end of this article. Now you
surely know how to format a hard drive. But, once again, don't play with the
commands if you are not serious about formatting a hard drive.
Even if the data is restorable you may do
something wrong to your computer. That is why, you should be careful! And now,
good luck!
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