If u re-install windows is that the same as reformatting. I re-installed windows and i found pics that i had in the original before i re-installed. How do I reformat. Sorry , borderline computer illerate lol.
Thanks
Bill

 

what version of windows? are you talking format the hard drive and reinstalling all the operating system and other software? if so, you have to do an FDISK first...

 

No, a reinstall is not the same as a reformat and then a reinstall.

If you do not reformat then Windows will simply attempt to reinstall itself on top of what is already there. This will leave your data files and such and in theory will leave your programs, although some may need to be reinstalled. I do not recommend this approach.

The approach I recommend is to complete save any files you absolutely need and then reformat your hard drive. You do not need to use FDISK for this. Some of the Windows versions allow a reformat during installation, so you may not even have to do so beforehand.

 

Fdisk is a partitioning tool, not a format utility, a partiton can be formated without using Fdisk first. Fdisk is also confined to the DOS/Windows 9X line, and is not present in the NT based OS's, they use Diskpart, so if the OP is using Windows 2k or XP, Fdisk is not an option.

 

as you will notice, I asked "what version of Windows"..... there are still a lot of people out there that use older Win9......

 

I did notice, however, no matter what version of Windows is in use, there is no need to deal with any partitioning software to format a drive.

 

I'll side with frhrwa here. If I do a reinstall of windows, no matter what version, I always delete the partition with fdisk then recreate then format. That gives me confidence that everything was wiped away. I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling if I just reformat.

My $.02.

 

Repartitioning doesn't gain you anything, very easy for me to recover a partition after it's been deleted and a new one created and formatted, but we all have our preferred methods, who am I to say what's right and what's wrong, it's a matter or preference

 

You don't get anything wiped away if you fdisk either. The only way to completely wipe away what is on the hard drive is to overwrite the information with something else, and even that is no guarantee.

Simply reformatting, even with an fdisk first, erases nothing.

 

If it's a simple reinstall, i'd assume windows 98. Format is an option that can't be missed in windows 2000/xp. It's right there in blue and white Drop the cd in with win98 and it'll pretty much install over the top of itself.

If this is the case, boot to your windows 98 cd, and boot the computer with cdrom support. Do not start the setup from this menu, it'll just reinstall again.

Navigate to your cd-rom. If you have a drive with one partition, then it's probably d:. It will show what your cd-rom drive loaded as.

Once your in the cd-rom, navigate to the win98 directory. type cd\win98 and press enter.

enter the following command:
format c: /u

Make sure you have all the drivers you need, and make sure you backup all necessary data before you format or you will have problems. Make sure you also have a copy of all software you will need. Format is going to wipe your computer totally.

Of course it's possible to recover data after the fact too... Theres free tools out there to do it.

How does a hard drive work? Here's an analogy...

Basically, think of a book with a table of contents. The table of contents would be called a FAT (file allocation table) on a hard drive. If you rip out the table of contents, it's going to be difficult to find any of the information in the book right? formatting basically does that, rips out the table of contents and preps the drive for a fresh install.

If you really want to destroy all the data, most drive manufacturers offer a low level formatting utility. It basically fills the drive with 0's, wiping the data. There are times you have to do this over and over for it to be successful and can take alot of time on a large drive.

 

I haven't tinkered with a drive after it's been formatted so I don't know what the data looks like. I did the low level format (write 0s to the disk) once and it takes a while. I'm afraid of crashing the disk by doing the low level formatting.

 

If you ever want to tinker with data recovery, try pc file inspector. It's free and i've had great success with it. Moreso than some of the expensive software packages i've tried...

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/download.htm

Mind you, don't try to recover a drive that there's nothing wrong with. It doesn't damage it, just goes thru the hard drive sector by sector.