[HamburgrHelpr08]

Can i reformat a hard drive without booting into windows?

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there are alot of programs that can do that...are you wanting to wipe the drive completely clean?

if so check out dban (google it)

you can do millitary grade formatting with it....completely wipes the drive clean...then fills it with zeros....then y ou can reinstall the os

[dsenette]

there are alot of programs that can do that...are you wanting to wipe the drive completely clean?

if so check out dban (google it)

you can do millitary grade formatting with it....completely wipes the drive clean...then fills it with zeros....then y ou can reinstall the os

[HamburgrHelpr08]

this drive doesn't have the os on it i just has some bad files on it that windows wont read it i no when i reformat it will fix it i just need to somehow do it in the bios.

[Kemasa]

You can boot from a CD or Floppy and format the drive. If that does not work, then use DBAN to wipe the disk and then use format. The bios can't format the disk, so you have to boot something. You can also use a Linux Live CD to reformat the disk, but again, you need to boot that.

[HamburgrHelpr08]

can you use the windows cd to reformat then just not install windows on it?

[Kemasa]

Yes, at least the last time I used such a CD. I think that there is an option to get a command prompt, from which you can run the format command.

[fleamailman]

l like gparted, it is a partition magic clone but
http://gparted.sourc...et/features.php

actually I would install linux first to clean format the computer, btw if you don't want to install windows but just want to leave your drive in ntfs, what is your intention then? Linux formats in ext3, but then gparted could change your drive to anything you like

[Kemasa]

There is no need to install Linux. You can reformat it and/or repartition it without installing anything, just booting from a CD.

[koko_crunch]

What's the difference between formatting a hardisk in comand prompt and formatting it in windows???

[Kemasa]

For a filesystem/disk other than the system, there really is no difference.

If you want to be technical, what many people call formatting is actually just creating a filesystem. Formatting is actually writing information on the disk to allow it to have data on it, like formatting a floppy. Most modern disks have the sector information and track information written at the factory and you typically can't do a low level format anymore.

[koko_crunch]

thanks kemasa

[Kemasa]

You are welcome.

[Neil Jones]

The closest you can get to a low level format these days is basically a sector wipe a few times over.
Effectively drives are told these days to ignore any attempts to perform low level formats. Many years ago low-level formatting was a necessity because thermal expansion pushed the platters away from the heads and therefore low-level formatting rewrote the tracks in the position the heads were currently in. Modern drives this is no longer a problem.