Now select the type of format FAT 32 or NTFS (NTFS recommended) and once you’ve pressed enter Windows will pretty much take over the rest. Its always recommended to install windows onto a partition incase one of the partitions fails the other one can be used to retrieve backup data. a 80GB hard drive into two 40GB partitions.) you can select on which partition to install windows. Once you have created the partition sizes you would like (e.g. When starting from scratch the easiest thing to do is to delete all the partitions and start from the beginning. From this point you can choose where about you want to install your operating system files.

Once the windows CD has booted up select from the Menu install Windows. I will cover the formatting of the hard drive along with the installation of windows O/S below. The next method is for formatting your primary or master drive and the best way to do this is to do it as a part of your windows installation. You can now format from here by simply typing format followed by the drive letter. To enter command prompt simply click start then run and enter “cmd” (without the “”) this will then bring up the command line. The next way is to format your hard drive via command prompt. Remember when using this method you must close all applications and files that are being run the computer from that drive otherwise you will not be able to proceed with the format.Ģ. Its also best to click the quick format option as this will dramatically reduce the time it will take to format the Drive.

From here you can select the format type Fat 32 or NTFS ( NTFS the most common these days as its much faster than Fat 32) Simply go into My computers then right click the specific Hard drive you wish to format then simply click Format. To format a Slave Hard drive (Not the hard drive with your current Operating System) you can simply format the drive in two ways, these methods areġ. Formatting via windows graphical user interface FORMAT HARDDISK/ HARDDRIVEĭepending on whether you are formatting your master hard drive or slave hard drive the ways of formatting will differ.

How to reformat hard drive windows