You could boot from one of the many Linux Live CDs and use the tools therein, or boot from some of the boot disks available at.

If you don’t have a Windows install CD, there are still approaches to get the reformat done. Windows Setup’s next step was to perform a full format of the hard drive before it continued. I recently did exactly this on my old laptop, and went so far as to use the partition manager that is part of Windows setup to delete all the partitions on the laptop’s hard drive and create a new partition that encompassed the entire disk. My recommended approach to reformatting a hard disk for most people is to boot from your Windows install CD, and indicate that you want a new, clean install. It can be a relatively quick way to erase the contents of the disk to start over, or to write to the entire disk to locate and compensate for any physical defects on the media.Īs you can see, a reformat and reinstall is an extreme step. “Re”-formatting a disk is simply repeating that process on a disk that was already formatted. The result is that the disk is ready for use. Step 1 is simple, step 2 typically takes a long time.įormatting a disk is a process that simply prepares it for use by writing what is effectively “blank data” to the entire disk. When most people talk about “reformatting” a machine, they really mean “reformat and reinstall”. That means that either you’ve backed up everything you need to save off of the machine, or that you’re ready to reload the machine, or you really do want an unbootable empty hard drive. So before we even get to step 1, “step 0” is to make sure that reformatting is exactly what you want to do. I’m sorry if that seems obvious to many of you, but trust me it’s not at all obvious to many others. The operating system, all your programs, and all your data. Reformatting a machine begins by erasing everything on it. Let’s be clear on exactly what it means to “reformat” a machine. Yes, yes, it can be done without the setup CD, but I’m guessing you won’t like what you end up with. In fact, you should not if you don’t have the Windows setup CD. The answer for most people is simple: no, you cannot.

How to reformat hard drive withoutdisk