How Do You Format A Hard Drive?

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my computer is rather old, slugglish, freezes up, and has a continual variety of boxes that pop up right in the middle of whatever I may be doing, causing me to have to shut down the activity at hand. I just cannot afford a new/better pc right now. I'm wondering if it would help to wipe out (format?) my hard drive? Is this process more trouble than it's worth? I was told that it would be a waste of time ~ I want a second opinion ~

Any help is immensely appreciated!! :(

thanks a bunch~
 
I used to do it with Win98 by using the format C:/S command but what make of hard drive is it and what OS, XP? or what :)
 
Oh Ok then what you will ofcourse is make a note of the drivers that are on the PC first, Modem, Video Adapter, Sound, and any other drivers listed, to find out what drivers you have I would use PC Wizard

Now make a note of any drivers needed.

Now you need to make a boot CD

How to create a startup disk
Normally, you would create a startup disk when you installed Windows 98. If you never made a startup disk, if you have lost it, or if yours is old (Startup disks created with previous versions of Windows are not compatible with Windows 98.), now is a great time to make a new one. It’s easy.

To create a boot disk, you will need a blank, 1.2 megabyte (MB) disk. You may also need your Windows 98 CD, so be sure to have it handy. To create a startup disk:

Click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then click Add/Remove Programs.
Click the Startup Disk tab, and then click the Create Disk button.
Label a floppy disk "Windows 98 Startup Disk," insert the disk in your floppy disk drive when prompted, and then click OK. Click OK again, and then follow the instructions on your screen.
Store the disk in a safe place.


Now leave the disk in the floppy and then also put the win98 CD in and then restart the PC and the PC should boot from the floppy and load some device drivers after this you should see a command saying A:\ now what youll need to do is type format c:/s so you should see A:\format c:/s and then after this you can type restart so you see A:\restart the PC will now restart and load the drivers again from the floppy and when dont type E:\ so you get to the CD drive is E is the letter of the CD drive if not type D:\ so on and so and when at E:\ type setup.exe so you get E:\setup.exe

Windows should now start a fresh install, and dont forget a format will wipe any of your documents so back up first
 
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