Formatting windows

So you want to start from scratch, just because you like the brand new feeling of a freshly reformatted pc? Or has spyware and viruses made your pc virtually unusable? Then the following tutorialwill help you reformat your hard drive and reinstall windows. I personally reformat my HDD and reinstall windows at least once every 3 months. Please note, I am not responsible for any damage although Idon't see how you can possibly damage anything whilst reformatting. Follow these steps exactly and you should be fine.

Step 1: Make sure you have your Windows XP disk. I personally deleteeverything I don’t need, and uninstall all programs that I don’t use. I then make a list of all the programs I still have installed and download all the installers I will need. Also download Spybot Search andDestroy and Ad-Aware but do not install them. I then backup all my important data and all the installers onto a portable hard drive – if you don’t have one you can build one (see HERE how to buildyour own external hard drive cheaply) or you can use DVD’s or CD’s. Make sure you have everything backed up and then disconnect the portable hard drive.

Step 2: Insert your windows disk into theMaster CD drive (if you have more than one) and turn the computer off. Make sure you are disconnected from any networks. You will need to have your cd drive selected as your first boot device. If it notalready selected, you will need to go into your bios and set the boot priority to cd/hdd, then with your Windows cd in your cd drive, save and exit bios.


Step 3: Turn on your computer. A screenwill come up saying “Press any key to boot from disk”. Press any key (where’s the “Any” key gone?!). Now wait about 10seconds for the setup utility to be loaded. When asked if you want to set up orrepair, hit Enter to set up Windows. Read the license agreement and hit F8 if you agree. If the setup program detects an existing installation of Windows and asks if you want to repair it, hit Esc to...