How to Format a Hard Drive - Steps to Reinstall Windows XP and Windows 2000

Are you bored with the poor performance of your computer? If you are experiencing frequent system crash, registry errors, malfunction programs and slow application loading, then it is time to take the necessary steps to repair your computer.

Formatting a computer is one way of repairing it, but it does not necessarily mean that you should format hard drive when you see problems. Actually, formatting should be the last option because you start everything from scratch.

If you are not successful fixing your computer, you may proceed to reading this article. The article tells you about the steps to reinstall new operating system.

Now, do not start to think that formatting can only be done by experts. You can format computer by following the steps mentioned in this article. You will also find a free guide at the end of this article to help you on the process.

Let us go and see the overall steps.

Step 1
Before jumping into formatting, you should backup every file and data you were working with to a secondary storage media. It can be CD/DVD or external hard disk. Note that you cannot backup installed programs and applications. These should be reinstalled after you finish the installation of the operating system.

Step 2
The second step is to prepare your installation and hardware drivers CD. You may think that the installation CD is enough for the formatting process. However, your computer hardware drivers are important when you start to install other applications.
All components such as graphics card, network card, modem, sound card and other peripherals need their own drivers. If you do not have a CD for these components, you must consult your computer seller or manufacturer to get one. You can also download drivers from their web page.

Step 3
After finishing the above steps, you can start to format hard drive. To do this, you must start your computer from a start up CD.

Firstly, Insert Windows CD and restart the computer.
This will boot the computer from a CD. If it fails to start from a CD, you need to arrange the boot sequence on your computer "BIOS" setting. Pressing "F1" or "F2" or "Delete" key will easily get you to your computer basic input/output setting. Your CD ROM should be first in the sequence.

When you restart the computer, you will see a message on a screen. The message asks you to press any key to start from the CD. You should press any key on the keyboard to start the installation.

Secondly, if you properly arranged the sequence, a welcome blue screen will show up. You can continue the process by pressing "ENTER" key.

Thirdly, You should accept the Licensing Agreement by pressing "F8".

Once you get here, you can continue the rest of the process without help. You just read each screen message and follow accordingly. As you may already guess, it is quite easy to format hard drive. I hope this article gives you start up information to launch the formatting right away.

If you want to have more information, you may take a minute to visit Learn about computer parts page.

Here, you can get a free guide to format hard drive. It shows each step with screen shots.

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