Reference number: CH000186

How to erase my hard disk drive and start over.

Issue:

How to erase my hard disk drive and start over.

Additional information:

• If you are looking for information about securely erasing your hard disk drive, or making it difficult or close to impossible to recover or read the old data, we recommend you refer to document CH000520.
• If you are attempting to use a recovery or restore diskette to restore your computer information and are experiencing issues, please refer to document CH000566.

Checklist:

The below recommendations are what a user should check before completely erasing their computer hard disk drive and starting over. Following these steps can prevent hours of hassles and headaches.

Solution:

Please remember that following the below steps will erase all of the information on your hard disk drive. Once the below steps have been completed, you will not be able to reverse the steps if you want to recover possible lost data. Please make sure that you have checked the above checklist verifying that you have not forgotten a possible important step. Finally, the below steps are the most recommended steps and it is possible that the manufacturer of your computer may have another method of restoring your computer using their software.

Erasing the hard disk drive

The below steps are for users with MS-DOS 5.0+, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, and Windows NT 4.0.

• If you are running or plan on installing Microsoft Windows 2000 please see document CH000544.
• If you are running or plan on installing Microsoft Windows XP please see document CH000647.

1. Place the bootable diskette or disc inside the computer and reboot to get to the DOS prompt. In some cases you may need to boot the computer with CD-ROM support or press a key to boot from the disk.
2. At the MS-DOS prompt type format c: /s
3. The computer will ask you "Are you sure you want to erase everything on drive c:" if you are ok with doing this press "Y" for yes and press enter.
4. After doing this, the computer will begin the formatting process. If you receive errors during this process, please see document CH000180.
5. Once the format process is completed successfully, at the MS-DOS prompt type fdisk /mbr and press enter. This should return you back to the MS-DOS prompt with no message. This step is not required but recommended.
6. Once back at the MS-DOS prompt, reboot the computer with the boot disk still in the computer.
7. Once back at the MS-DOS prompt, insert either the diskettes for MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, or the CD for Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT and click the appropriate link

MS-DOS users
Windows 3.x users
Windows 95 floppy diskette users
Windows 95 CD users
Windows 98 users
Windows NT 4.0 users

MS-DOS users

1. Place the first MS-DOS diskette into the computer.
2. At the A:\> type setup and press enter to being the installation.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

Note: If you discover a bad diskette during the installation, it is recommended that you contact Microsoft for a possible replacement.

Windows 3.x users

1. Place the first diskette of Windows 3.x into the computer.
2. At the A:\> type setup and press enter to begin the installation.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

Note: If you discover a bad diskette during the installation, it is recommended that you contact Microsoft for a possible replacement.

Windows 95 floppy diskette users

1. Place the first diskette of Windows 95 into the computer.
2. At the A:\> type setup and press enter to begin the installation.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

Note: If you discover a bad diskette during the installation of Windows 95 it is recommended you contact Microsoft for possible replacement.

Windows 95 CD users

1. Place the CD into the computer.
2. Type X: (where x is the CD-ROM drive, generally this is D).
3. Once at the appropriate drive, type CD WIN95 and press enter to get into the Windows 95 directory.
4. Once at X:\WIN95> type setup to begin the installation
5. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

If you are encountering issues during the setup process, you can add additional switches to the setup command line. These switches can be found on our Windows 95 Setup Switches page.

Windows 98 users

Complete information about the setup and installation of Windows 98 once the hard disk drive has been erased can be found on document CH000569.

Windows NT 4.0 users

Windows NT can be installed several different ways. We recommend that Windows NT be installed using the below steps as we feel that these steps by far are the easiest way to install Windows NT 4.0.

First, we recommend that all users wanting to simply install Windows NT use the /b switch which allows the users to not need to create the diskettes. We do, however, recommend that the user create the Emergency recover diskettes if they have not already been created after the installation of Windows NT.

Finally, before the installation of Windows NT, it is recommended that you run SMARTDRV, which will help the installation of Windows NT run a lot faster.

1. Place the CD into the computer.
2. Type X: (where x is the CD-ROM drive, generally this is D).
3. Once at the appropriate drive, type CD WINNT and press enter to get into the Windows 95 directory.
4. Once at X:\WINNT> type winnt /b.
5. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.