How to Format Computer Without a Windows CDYou can format a primary or secondary hard drive without a Windows installation disc. Ablestock. com/Able. Stock. com/Getty Images. Whether you’re looking to reinstall Windows, retire one of your company’s computers, or just prepare a second hard drive for reuse, it's a good idea to wipe the drive first by formatting it. You can format any drive from within the Windows interface except for the system drive. If you want to format your system drive, or C: drive, you cannot do so while Windows is running and will need to boot the system from a boot disc first. If you don’t have your Windows installation media, you can create a system repair disc from within Windows 7. Formatting a Non- System Drive. Log into the computer in question with an administrator account. Click Start, type “diskmgmt. Search box and press “Enter.”3. Right- click the drive you wish to format, and click “Format.”4. Click the “Yes” button if prompted. Type a volume label. This is just a display name, so feel free to select whatever descriptive name works for you. Uncheck the “Perform a quick format” box. A “quick format” doesn’t actually wipe any data; it simply flags the volume as “free” so it can be overwritten. Click “OK” twice. The formatting process can take anywhere between a few minutes and a few hours, depending on drive size. You need to format a hard drive if you plan on using it in Windows. As complicated as that might sound, it's not really difficult to format a hard drive in any. CD Ripper - Rip CD to MP3, WAV Free CD Ripping Software. Accord CD Ripper Free is a free audio CD ripping software, with it you can easily rip audio CD tracks to.Formatting a System Drive. Click Start, “Control Panel” and then “System and Maintenance.”2. Click “Backup and Restore.”3. Click “Create a system repair disc” on the left. Insert a writable CD into your CD/DVD drive and click “Create disc.”5. Click “Close” and “OK.”6. Reboot your computer, and tap the appropriate key to bring up your boot menu. F1. 0 and F1. 2 are common. Refer to your computer’s user manual if you’re unsure which key should be used. Select your CD/DVD drive as your boot device, and press “Enter.”8. Press any key to boot to the disc when prompted. Click the “Next” button. After a few minutes, the System Recovery Options dialog box will appear. Click the radio button next to “Use recovery tools that can help fix problems starting Windows. Select an operating system to repair.”1. Choose the partition size and click on Next. Leave the Assign the following drive letter. Leave the Format this partition with the. How do I format a CD Disc in Windows 10? So I may burn a disc. It was very simple to. Select your Windows installation. In most cases, there’ll only be one operating system listed. Disregard the reported drive letter, as it is often incorrect. Use the partition size as your reference instead (in most cases, your Windows partition encompasses nearly your entire disk). Click “Next.”1. 3. Click “Command Prompt.”1. Type the following command (without quotation marks here and throughout): “vol C: ”1. Press “Enter.” Note the volume label, which appears after “Volume in drive K is.”1. Type the following command: “Format c: /fs: NTFS”1. Press “Enter.”1. 8. Type the volume label you obtained in Step 1. Enter.”1. 9. Type “Y” and then press “Enter” when prompted. The process should take an hour or more to complete, depending on disk size. Type a new volume label for the drive, and press “Enter.”2.
Remove the system repair disc, and shut down your computer. Things Needed. Writable CD (if formatting a system drive)Warnings. If you cannot access your Windows installation at all, or in the unlikely event that Windows prompts you to insert your installation media while creating your boot CD, you won’t be able to create a system repair disc. In this case, you can download a third- party boot disc, such as the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows or Bart PE (Links in Resources). Alternatively, remove the hard drive from the computer and install it as a secondary drive in any other working computer. Next, boot the system into Windows and format the drive using the instructions provided in the “Formatting a Non- System Drive” section. Formatting a hard drive permanently erases data. Therefore, make absolute sure you select the correct drive before initiating the format command. About the Author. A writer and proofreader since 2. B. Steele also works as an IT Help Desk analyst, specializing in consumer and business user tech support. She earned a B. A. Steele also holds certifications as a Microsoft- certified desktop support technician, Microsoft- certified IT professional, Windows 7 enterprise support technician and Comp. TIA A+ IT technician. Photo Credits. Ablestock. Able. Stock. com/Getty Images. How to Format a Hard Drive (Windows 1. Vista, XP)You need to format a hard drive if you plan on using it in Windows. To format a hard drive means to delete any information on the drive and to set up a file system so your operating system can read data from, and write data to, the drive. As complicated as that might sound, it's not really difficult to format a hard drive in any version of Windows. This ability is a very basic function that all operating systems have, and Windows makes it pretty easy. Important: If the hard drive you want to format has never been used, or was just wiped clean, it must first be partitioned. See How to Partition a Hard Drive in Windows for instructions. Once partitioned, return to this page for help formatting the drive. Time Required: The time it takes to format a hard drive in Windows depends almost entirely on the drive's size, but your computer's overall speed plays a part too. Follow the easy steps below to format a hard drive in Windows 1. Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP: How to Format a Hard Drive in Windows. Optional Walkthrough: If you'd prefer a screenshot- based tutorial, skip the instructions below and try my Step by Step Guide to Formatting a Hard Drive in Windows instead! Open Disk Management, the hard drive manager included with all versions of Windows. Note: In Windows 1. Windows 8, the Power User Menu gives you the quickest access to Disk Management. You can also open Disk Management from the Command Prompt in any version of Windows but opening it via Computer Management is probably easier unless you're really quick with commands. See What Version of Windows Do I Have? If so, it means you still need to partition the drive. See How to Partition a Hard Drive in Windows and then return here to continue. Note: Formatting the C drive, or whatever letter happens to identify the drive that Windows is installed on, can not be done from Disk Management.. See How to Format C for instructions on how to format your primary drive. Once located, right- click or tap- and- hold on the drive and choose Format.. Once started, you can't stop a format without causing problems. So.. If you're formatting a drive that has data on it, double- check that it's the correct drive by looking at the drive letter and then checking in File Explorer or Windows Explorer (depending on your version of Windows) that it is, in fact, the correct drive. If you're formatting a new drive, the drive letter assigned should be unfamiliar to you and the File System will probably be listed as RAW. In the Volume label: textbox, either give a name to the drive or leave the name as is. If this is a new drive, Windows will assign the volume label. New Volume. I recommend giving a name to the drive so it's easier to identify in the future. For example, if you're planning on using this drive to store movies, name the volume Movies. For File system: choose NTFS unless you have a specific need to choose another file system. NTFS is always the best file system option to use in Windows unless you have a specific need to choose FAT3. Other FAT file systems are only available as options on drives 2 GB and smaller. Set the Allocation unit size: set to Default unless there's a specific need to customize it. There are very few reasons to change this. In Windows 1. 0, 8, and 7, the Perform a quick format option is checked by default but I recommend unchecking the box so a . A quick format skips the bad sector search and basic data sanitization. Windows XP: In a standard format, each sector is checked for errors. The quick format skips this check. Automatic data wiping during the format process isn't available in Windows XP. The Enable file and folder compression option is unchecked by default and I recommend keeping it that way. Note: File and folder compression can be enabled to save on disk space and you're welcome to enable it if you think you may benefit from it. However, most drives are so large today that the tradeoff between the saved space and lower drive performance probably aren't worth it. Tap or click OK at the bottom of the window. Tap or click OK to the . Back up any data you want to to keep before formatting. Do you want to continue? You can keep track of the drive format by watching the Formatting: xx% progress in the Status field. Note: Formatting a hard drive in Windows could take a very long time if the drive is large and/or slow. A small 2 GB hard drive might only take several seconds to format while a 2 TB drive could take considerably longer depending on the speed of the hard drive and the computer as a whole. The format is complete when the Status changes to Healthy, which will happen a few seconds after the format counter reaches 1. Windows does not otherwise notify you that the drive format is complete. That's it! You've just formatted or reformatted, your hard drive and you can now use the drive to store files, install programs, backup data.. Depending on your version of Windows, and the type of format, it's possible the data is still there, hidden from Windows and other operating systems but still accessible in certain situations. See How to Wipe a Hard Drive for instructions on truly removing all the information on a hard drive and my Wipe vs Shred vs Delete vs Erase: What's the Difference? See How to Completely Erase a Hard Drive for more on these other methods. More on Formatting Hard Drives in Windows. If you want to format your hard drive so you can install Windows again from scratch, please know that your hard drive will be automatically formatted as part of that process. See How to Clean Install Windows for more on that. Not happy with the drive letter that Windows assigned during the partitioning process? You're welcome to change it at any time! See How to Change Drive Letters in Windows to see how. You can also format a hard drive via Command Prompt using the format command. See my Format Command: Examples, Switches, & More for details on how to do that.
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