Tutorial: How to reformat your hard drive and install/reinstall Windows

Help!

I have a questions sirs',..
If i will reformat my laptop.. the OS will also be removed? even though it is built in,, because when i bought my laptop.. it already had a Operating system which is W7,,. and now.. i would want to reformat my laptop....

KINDLY HELP.. PLEASE..
Thanks a lot to whomever you are that's going to help me...=))

I'm in the process of reinstalling XP sp3. Ran into a snag about product key. I had to order a license key. The interesting part about this is the saleswoman told me that when you replace a hard drive as I did, and try the old product key, the mother board indicates that it is invalid, and that a new license is needed. I'm not sure if this true or not but I offer this up in case anyone is fighting the same battle.

Yeah well, it's hard to find good help these days. The reverse is true with pre-built computers and OEM product keys. If the motherboard fails, the corresponding copy of Windows dies with it. Unless, it is replaced with an OEM board of the exact same type, from the original manufacturer. Restore discs will install the OS into whatever HDD it finds, in either IDE Channel 0 master, or the SATA 0 port of the mobo. (Dependend obviously, on the type of HDD interface in use).

One issue you can run into with "tatooed" OEM boards, is sometimes they won't accept a standard Windows disc foe an install, but rather require the factory issued "restore discs", for the exact same model.

What is the make/model of your notebook? Chances are it may contain a recovery partition containing OS with factory defaults on it, so if this is the case, you can simply use prescribed system recovery and follow the steps described in their material.

Install Windows 7 on XP laptop

If I would like to reformat my hard drive of the laptop, running Windows XP and install Windows 7, shall I follow the same steps or are there any different steps?

If you have a legal copy of Windows 7, there is no issue with going ahead and formating your HDD then installing the OS.

However, please ensure that you have backed up all your necessary data before proceeding with the formating and installation.

Stuck in reinstall Windows XP

I have followed your instructions - which have been very clear. I am currently stuck as it says "Display Settings - To improve the appearance of visual elements, Windows will automatically adjust your screen resolution." I can't press the OK button as my wireless mouse and keyboard stopped working during the reinstall. Help please!!

Bob Roe

Hi,
I am relatively novice and trying to reformat an XP hardrive.

The instructions are fabulous, but I get lost # the Format instruction after hitting ENTER to install Windows on "the unpartitioned space" and do not understand (ntfs) nothing comes up to guide fromatting.

Thanks,
BigBadBob

Unique question then: I was trying a system recovery, but the recovery was interrupted midway by a power outage. Now I can't get anything in terms of recovery to really work because of apparently corrupted HDD data. Is there a way to reformat/completely wipe the HDD w/o the use of the parent computer, and without messing up another CPU?

You can try this:http://www.dban.org/ or a similar "hard drive wiper" sort of program. These contain a version of the MSDOS within the program, so will run without a working OS. (They have to, since you're clearing the drive completely). You do need to have the BIOS of the affected computer set to "boot from CD", as the 1st boot option.

Plan "B" would be to pull the drive, and pop it into another machine, and do a FULL format.
If the HDD in question is WD, they have available software to "zero out" a drive, which means writing zeroes to the entire drive. I think "Seagate's "Sea Tools" is similar in this capacity.

You might be able to download a copy of any Linux distro, and do a live run of that OS from the CD drive. If you opt to "install" Linux, it will also format the entire drive for you. When you attempt to reinstall Windows, it will then overwrite the entire drive.

When I am installing my windows xp on my laptop it says it doesn't not detect a hard drive what or where do I get the download to install my hard drive software