Format your system: guide on how to format your system and recover your files

Formatting your system is much easier than you might imagine. What you are actually formatting is your hard drive. Formatting erases the files on your hard drive, but in the process I’ll teach you how to restore your files after it crashes. Before starting this process, I highly recommend connecting your computer to a power source to prevent your system from shutting down during the process. The need to reformat our computer arises mainly when our startup boot drive has been damaged, some are due to wanting to upgrade or create a multi-boot system. But in this article we will take a closer look at clean installing and repairing your operating system, to recover files or delete them during the installation of a new operating system using a BOOTABLE CD/DVD.

THINGS YOU WILL NEED TO FORMAT OR REPAIR YOUR COMPUTER (HARD DRIVE)

• The first thing you will need is a Windows installation disk, popularly known as a BOOT CD.

• The next important thing is your product key. Required to complete the format or repair process.

The formatting process is known as a clean install, so you will lose all your files, but I’ll show you how to do both.

The first thing is to turn on your computer and insert the ‘boot CD’, then reboot your system. Some computers may automatically offer the option to boot from a CD if they detect a bootable CD in the CD-ROM drive. If so, when you start the computer with a bootable CD in the CD-ROM drive, you will see the message “Press any key to boot from CD.” Otherwise, you can configure your computer to boot from a CD using your computer’s BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) setup program. That’s how:

When you start your computer for the first time, look for a brief message telling you which key to press for setup. For example, some computers will have this message: Press DELETE to enter setup.

If your computer doesn’t give you that message, try pressing these commonly used keys during startup:

REMOVE

F1

F2

F3, then F2

F10

F12

CTRL+ALT+ESC

CTRL+ALT

Esc

If graphics appear during startup, pressing ESC often causes the graphics to disappear so you can see the correct key to enter BIOS setup.

When you see the message, quickly press the indicated key. You will enter a DOS-like program consisting of one or more screens. You probably won’t be able to use your mouse or trackpad while in this program. BIOS programs vary widely, but look for an option called “Boot Order” or something similar.

Set the boot order to boot from the CD before booting from the hard drive.

Some newer laptops have a Windows-based utility to configure the BIOS. If your computer does not boot from a CD, see the section titled “Other Installation Related Tasks” for information on starting the installation from a command prompt.

As the [(BIOS) basic input/output system] opens, then use the arrow keys on the keyboard to select boot from CD/DVD ROM.

Then hold down the CTRL and ALT keys together for a few seconds and let go. This opens the Windows Setup on the BOOT CD/DVD. But if your system hasn’t completely crashed and the BIOS doesn’t open like I told you, hold down the CTRL and ALT keys and Windows setup will pop up.

On the Where do you want to install Windows page, click Drive Options (Advanced). Select the partition where you want to install Windows, and then click Format. This deletes all files on the selected partition, so you can either install Windows on a clean partition or click R to repair.

When Windows Setup opens, if you want to do a clean install, click ENTER, but to repair your system where your files are not removed, click R.

As the repair process continues your files will be copied over, this might take longer if you have a lot of files on your computer.

After the installation continues, another page will appear asking for the product key, so check the product key of the bootable CD/DVD, write it down and continue with the installation.

Read the license terms page, click accept and continue.

Some other instructions will appear; just follow them, they are easy to understand and complete the recovery process.