I have 2 hard drives, how to reformat both of them?

simon22 · 9 Dec 2009 at 22:03

I have 2 hard drives with Operating Systems, the C drive with a OS which is faulty and the D drive which has a OS and that actually works and I'm writing from now, I want to reformat both of them so I can have a clean new system on the C drive, I will be using Win XP Pro for the new OS, can anyone tell me how to reformat those hard drives and have C as my OS drive???

Indy500 · 9 Dec 2009 at 22:04

Use the XP Pro CD (with it set as the boot media) to format them. Setup gives you the option of formatting or creating new partitions.

simon22 · 9 Dec 2009 at 22:05

There will be an option to format both of the drives to make them empty and then to make a fresh install on the C drive??

vanandjuanunited · 9 Dec 2009 at 22:09

simon22 said:
There will be an option to format both of the drives to make them empty and then to make a fresh install on the C drive??

Yes after booting from the cd you will see the option to format each disk - 1 at a time and create partitions if you need to

simon22 · 9 Dec 2009 at 22:10

This is my final question as I am really a noob at this, there will be seperate options when I put in the CD with one to format both of the disks and the other one to actually install the OS on the particular disk(my ofc will be c) please confirm this for me, thanks very much

simon22 · 9 Dec 2009 at 22:16

Why did someone I read a tutorial from said that after that I need to unplug the drives or something from the computer in order for it to work, is that necessery or i just put in the cd and it will do it by its own??

vanandjuanunited · 9 Dec 2009 at 22:17

simon22 said:
This is my final question as I am really a noob at this, there will be seperate options when I put in the CD with one to format both of the disks and the other one to actually install the OS on the particular disk(my ofc will be c) please confirm this for me, thanks very much

you will get to a screen with 3 options
install
Create a partition
Delete a partition

Below this you will see your 2 drives
Select the first drive and dlete the partition once done create a new partition etc and do same for other disk.
Once diks are formatted proceed to install the OS

This is a rough guide - it will make more sense when you see the screens

PS Make sure you have backed up any important DATA

You may also need to go into the bios and set it to boot from cd.

simon22 · 9 Dec 2009 at 22:25

oke i will put in cd later to reformat both disks ty very much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IAmATeaf · 10 Dec 2009 at 11:49

If the C: drive is faulty why would you want to install an OS onto it?

I'd unplug the C: and just leave the D: drive plugged in, then remove the exisiting partition(s) when booted up of the OS CD/DVD and then perform a clean install.

What size and make/models are the disks?

simon22 · 10 Dec 2009 at 15:25

no c: is not faulty it just got a windows xp which had an error on that disk and it wont load i need to format and then install new os on it