Safely reformating hard drive

[Last One In]

Is there a way to safely reformat your hard drive? The one that i'll be doing is my main hard drive.

 

[giant384]

umm the only way to do it through the bios. there is no "safe" or wrong way theres only one way. how were you planning to format it?

 

[coLE']

can't you just use windows disc to re-install registry files ?

 

[JohnnyOnTheSpot]

umm the only way to do it through the bios. there is no "safe" or wrong way theres only one way. how were you planning to format it?

That's only if your BIOS supports it (the last BIOS I saw that actually had a low-level format option was in a Socket 7 motherboard ages ago, but that doesn't mean that recent BIOSes don't have the option).

If you're fine with losing any/all data on your hard drive, any format will be "safe". Just boot off of your XP CD and it should look for your hard drive's partitions. Just delete your existing partition, recreate it, and then format (use NTFS if you're given the option). Voila!

 

[dream431ca]

Just re-install windows and it will give you a option to reformat.

 

[Asus]

You can boot to a Windows CD install disc and use that format especially if you are reinstalling. NTFS is probably the format you want it in.

FYI If you do a basic format it basicly makes your PC forget where your data is so it has no issue writing over it. Using recovery software you can get that info back as long as it was not writen over.

If you get the disk utility out that came with your harddrive (or on their website) you can write all zeros to the drive. That actually erases the info so it is gone for good. That utility should also have a basic format tool.

Hope that covers what a 'safe' format is.