Formatting hd

[yaroa]

What are the steps to format a HD?

[BBA]

You first have to be operating the PC from a source other than the drive you want to format. This can be another hard drive or a floppy disk.

All you need to format with is a bootable disk that has the 'FORMAT.COM' file copied to it.

You might want CD drivers on the floppy also so that you can reload the OS from a CD.

After booting the PC, from the command prompt you type " FORMAT /s /c C: " ( if the C drive is the one being formatted )
This will also test/verify/recover any sectors that may be marked bad and are not bad (thats what the '/c' does). This will also make the disk bootable ( the '/s' tells it to copy system files to the formatted disk).

If you need more help, let us know.

BBA

[nk4]

If the hard drive has partitions, when you format, it doesnt destroy the partition right? And if it is FAT32 and is formatted, does it remain FAT32 or not?

[yaroa]

Pardon my ingorance: How do you make a bootable disk?

[Gentle Giant]

Bootable disk:
Put a disk in a: drive - open run dialog box
(From the start menue _Run)
type,
format /s /c a:
Follow the post of BBA.

[This message has been edited by Gentle Giant (edited 06-01-99).]