Need to completely format.

[Atty]

My friend needs me to completely format his Laptop hard drive. He wants it completely clean only one problem, I can't figure out how to do it.

I looked through the BIOS and found nothing, I can't do it from inside windows, and downloading an external program to burn to a disc doesn't work because his Windows install is so shitted it won't recognize the CD and the laptop won't boot from the CD.

Help?

 

[Atty]

Halp? 🙁

 

[taltamir]

It has nothing to do with the BIOS
you put in the windows install CD. You start the install.
In windows XP it will ask if you if you want to:
1. Format in NTFS (quick)
2. Format in NTFS
3. Format in FAT32 (quick)
4. Format in FAT32
5. Leave as is.

If you leave as is it just deletes the windows directory and installs windows again. All the other options format it... ALWAYS choose NTFS.
Furthermore. You should do a full format once in a long while. So for the first time you try this, do a regular format (that one that doesn't say quick).
A full format deletes the data and tests all the sectors on the HDD (30 min to a few hours). A quick format just rewrites the file table in a few seconds giving you a "blank disk" (the data is still there, its just gibberish and will be overwritten as you write files).
After one successful full format you can go for a good year or two doing quick formats as needed.

If you have windows vista there would be a point where you could press a button that looks like an eraser that says format (you might have to click "advanced" first... it will be when selecting the drive to install it to).

Likewise any other OS you install will give you the option to format.

 

[Davegod]

Originally posted by: taltamir
You start the install.

it's not clear from his post but i think this is the bit he's having problems with:

his Windows install is so shitted it won't recognize the CD and the laptop won't boot from the CD.

iAtticus, tried booting from a USB stick? I suspect though that you'd be needing to find the boot order option in the bios for this to work though :/

Quite a few laptops have the OS install imaged to a hidden parition, i think you hit the right key on boot and it gives you the option to start the reformat+reinstall

 

[taltamir]

his windows install doesn't recognize the boot disk? windows has absolutely NOTHING to do with booting up. Booting is 100% bios...

ALL bios will default to:
1. Boot from floppy, if none detected go to 2.
2. Boot from HDD, if no OS detected on HDD go to 3.
3. Boot from CD/DVD.

So if you put in the install DVD then it will NEVER boot from it unless you have a freshly formatted HDD without windows.
Go into BIOS, find something called "boot order" and change it to boot from CD/DVD before booting from HDD.