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If you have gotten one too many Blue Screens of Death on your PC, or discover the fateful ticking sound coming from your laptop, it is likely time to format your Hard Drive. Formatting will remove all data on the drive and is the fastest way to remove computer viruses. Formatting does not only have to be done when there is a problem, it can also be done to simply wipe a drive clean in one go, if for example you are going to upgrade the drive a new operating system. This guide will explain how to format a Hard Drive on a PC as well as MAC.

How To Format A Hard Drive

Necessary tools and materials

A Windows or Macintosh Hard drive utility disk

Instructions

Step one:

Select the main drive of the Mac usually called Macintosh HD

Go to: Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility

This will select all the drives on to the computer.

Step two:

Select the disk that you want to format from the list on the left, then select the erase tab that is located to the right of the HD listing. A list of formatting alternatives will select.

Step three:

Select the Volume erase option from the listing that will open up.

Step five

Name the mounted hard drive and type it in the area intended.

Step six

Pick the erase button and a window will open requesting to confirm your choice. Select erase again and the formatting process will begin.

Once formatting is complete, the drive will be listed with the name it was given in step five as well as on the desktop of the Mac.

How to erase a Hard Drive with Windows XP.

Step one:

To erase a hard drive with Windows XP or 2000, insert Windows CD and restart your PC.

Step two:

Your computer should automatically boot from the CD to the Windows Setup Main Menu.

At the Welcome to Setup page, press ENTER.

Step three:

Press F8 to accept the Windows XP Licensing Agreement.

Step four:

If XP is already installed, you will be asked prompted to to repair it. Press escape to bypass the option.

Step five:

Use the ARROW keys to select the partition or the unpartitioned space where you want to create a new partition. Press D to delete an existing partition, or press C to create a new partition. Type the size in megabytes (MB) that you want to use for the new partition, and then press “enter” or just press “enter” to create the partition with the maximum size.

Step six:

Select the format option that you want to use for the partition (Recommended: NTFS), and then press ENTER.

Step seven:

When the Windows Setup program erases the partition, follow the commands that appear on the screen to continue installing Windows.

Tips and warnings:

1) Before formatting a hard drive back up all the information you need from the drive. You will lose ALL the data stored on the drive after formatting.

2) If you are formatting a Macintosh, you cannot format the startup disk unless the system has started up from the installation CD.

3) Be patient, this may take some time. The amount of time it will take to format a hard drive will depend on numerous factors:

1. The size of the drive (larger drives (120 GB and up) will take a longer time to format than smaller ones).

2. The type of file system of the drives. Windows drives with New technology File System (NTFS) file systems will take longer to format than (FAT or FAT 32).