How To Format A Hard Drive With Windows XP

Learning how to format a hard drive with Windows XP is useful if you have more than one hard drive in your computer or attach more to work with. Formatting a hard drive can be necessary when you are getting ready to install a new operating system on a hard drive or want to clear all of the data off of the drive for some other reason. It may be obvious, but it is important to know that you can not format the hard drive that is running Windows XP while the operating system is in use. Follow these steps to learn how to format a hard drive in Windows XP.

What you will need: 

• A computer running Windows XP
• A second hard drive attached to the computer

1. Click the "start menu" and then open "My computer."
2. Right click the name of the hard drive that you want to format. Since Windows XP normally uses the drive letter C, it should be a drive other than this.
3. Select "format," from the right click menu.
4. You can usually use the default settings to format the drive. But before you do, make sure that this is the drive that you want to format. This is important to double check, because all of the data on the hard drive will be erased and is not easy to restore. 
5. Click the "format button" and then confirm that you want to format the drive. 
6. The formatting process may take a while. This will depend on how large the drive is. 
7. You will be notified when formatting is complete.

You can also format a hard drive using the XP installation CD. To do this, boot the computer from the CD drive and format the hard drive before installation.

Resources:

Format your hard drive