i have a dell laptop. i got it in the summer of '06. im trying to format it but i dont know how. could someone give a simple step-by-step procedure on how to do this? also some of the files i would like to keep so how do i back them up? should i upload them to a website or what? thanks a lot.
First to remove the files you will need a Floppy drive or a CD/burner. Do you have one or both of these ? What Operating system is on the laptop now ? What OS are you going to put back into this laptop? We are going to need somemore info here.
i do have a cd burner i could put some of the files onto cds. the operating system is windows xp professional
Ghostman is right in what he says. Some more info would be very useful. What are your reasons for fromatting and what do you want to format? A partition, a whole drive, a new drive....? If you want to format a new partition just right click the partition/drive letter in My Computer and select Format to open up a dialog box with the necessary options. Otherwise use Disk Management which will also format a new partition or entire drive or do you need help formatting a partition for a new installation?
i guess it would be the entire hard drive. i've had a couple problems with it so im guessing if i format it then it would be good as new.
I am guessing that you have the XP pro install disk right ? That is all you will need to install a new copy and format the drive. Just install the XP cd and reboot, then you should see booting from CD, hit enter once. IF this step does not work ,then you will need to go into your bios and change the boot options. Next if it did boot to cd, just let it do its own thing.. It will search for other/old operating systems., Then delete the old OS, and format and install the new.
Again Ghostman is correct in what he says, but I'm not exactly sure what you want to do. Do you want to do a fresh install or are you looking to solve a few problems with your file system / HDD? The simplest way to do the latter is to use the Error checking utility. This will check your disk for bad sectors and other such problems and put them right or label them as bad if they're unfixable. A solution for many HDD problems requiring very little effort on your part. To get to the utiliy; My Computer => Right Click C: => properties => tools tab => "check now" button ( I think) Note that this path is for Win 2000 so on XP it may be a little different To do a fresh install follow Ghostmans instructions, otherwise you could tell us the symptoms of your hard disk problem and maybe we can have a bash at finding less drastic solution
i'll try some simpler methods first. it's been going slow the past few weeks. i'm not sure if thats the computer itself or my internet connection. Also i had photoshop and some plugins for it and when i uninstalled it i still have 3/4 of my harddrive being used for some reason. i dont know where the files are that are from photoshop. i thought it was all deleted.
the cd i have from dell for the operating system says: reinstallation cd service pack 2. is this the one i use to format my comp? will this remove everything and install the basics?
Reformatting will lose all the data on the partition/drive that you are reformatting unless you are skilled at data recovery.
