what is the command to format hard drive in windows xp?
339212
right click on the HD icon in "My Computer", click on "format...," then read what's in the pop-up window. Kinda a hard within XP if it's the system disk.
649466
Formatting would be your best bet. Though there are certain commercial softwares which do this for you and then rewrite junk on the drive so that all previous info is lost but since nothing important is there a simple reformat would do. In order to do it you would have to boot into the command prompt. if you are using a certain brand like Dell or HP they have system restore which allows you to reset your computer to the day you bought it thus in effect starting out on a clean slate for any new user.\nI would personally recommend this(provided of course you have this feature)\n\nCheck out the link on Cnet about deleting data, it also has some links for softwares which will help you erase your HardDisk.
932197
the same way as you do it for an internal HD. go to My Computer, right click the drive and select Format.
666950
Come with me step by step:\n\n1: Prepare a Windows (XP Pro.) CD which is bootable.\n\n2: Change you setup settings so that your computer can boot with a CD.\n\n3: Place the CD in and restart your computer.\n\n4: Push any key when it asks you to boot from CD.\n\n5: Start to install Windows XP and it will ask you if you want to format the drives. \n\n6: let it go on till the step where you can choose between NTFS or FAT format.\n\nThat is it. You've made it.
153740
Right Click on a my computer icon, select manage from the drop down list.  A Computer Management window will open.  Select Disk Management.  Finally select the drive you would like to format, right click and select format.
758975
format command creates a file system in the disk partition. In case of windows it is either FAT32 or NTFS depending on your choice.
5988
Depends on how drastic you wanna be. Even after formating some data can still be recovered by someone who knows what he/she is doing.\n\nMy Solution:\n1) Boot pc with boot disk.\n2) Use Fdisk to delte partition and recreate it \n3) Use the Format C: /U command (unconditional format)\n4) Bootup with windows XP or 2000 cd and when installing choose format as NTFS partition.\n\nNote: When deleting the current partition and recreating it as either fat or fat32 and afterwards reformating as NTFS it makes it virtualy impossible to do a data recovery on the disk.
538424
If you have a WinXP disk\npop it in\npress ENTER to load disc when it asks\nyou can format from the winxp installation\nby selecting a partition and choosing to delete it\nformat as NTSF quick, best choice for today's world - the full format is useless and needlessly LONG\n\nif you don't have a XP disk..you shouldnt't be deleting your computer
949607
This will depend on  what you want to do?\nIf you  are installing a new hard drive then  first of all you need to check to see if it set as a master , then you need to partition and format the drive. The easiest way to do this is to  go to www.madboot.com and download  the boot disk then use it  it will allow you to  fdisk, partition format and install  and  lots more\n If you are using xp  as an OS then set your pc to boot from the cd-drive and  install from the disk
888494
This is how to compress old files on your drive, it assumes you are using XP.\n\n1 - Right click on My Computer and select Manage\n\n2 - Click on Disk Management and find the C: drive\n\n3 - If it is NTFS, skip to step 11\n\n4 - If it is Fat32, do the following:\n\n5 - click start, run, type cmd\n\n6 - in the command prompt type convert C: /fs:ntfs\n\n7 - enter the volume label, this the name of the drive in bold letters in disk management\n\n8 - when it asks to dismount enter N\n\n9 - when it asks to perform it on next reboot enter Y, reboot it will run a disk check and convert the drive.  At this point it may error out if you do not have enough free space.  If that happens you will need to delete some stuff or burn it to a cd an put it back later.\n\n10 - Now your drive it ntfs, and we can compress it\n\n11 - open my computer, right click on C: and select properties\n\n12 - on the general tab at the bottom is a checkbox to compress the drive, check it and hit apply\n\n13 - choose the option to apply to subfolders (should be default) - the process will take some time to complete.\n\n14 - let it compress the drive and reboot.  This should save you a gig or more.  You can possibly save about 25% of the amount of data you have, but it depends greatly on what type of data it is.
951918
If you want to just free up the space, From windows xp, right click on my compuer.. click manage.. go into disk management.. select the partition you have windows 98 on, and go ahead and reformat it using NTFS file format.. this will erase your files and reformat the partition
569443
hi there,\nit is so simple to format a pc. just take a bootable cd and in bios, select frist boot device as cdrom.\n\nboot ur pc with cd rom support using bootable cd or just start pc in gui mode and type command \nformat c:\nc: --> is ur drive letter which u want to format.\n\nif u want to format ur frist drive then u must have to boot with cd rom support otherwise in gui mode u cannt format ur c: drive coz currently u r working on that and u cant format a drive in which u r working currently.\nnote:- if u want to format c drive then frist change the drive letter c to d or e, f ,g\nto change ur drive letter type command --> d:\n\ngood luck!!!
746611
Put The CD In The Rom.Restart The Computer..Press Any Key To Boot From CD(Setup Is Inspecting Your Hardware)After The BootFiles Load,The Next Prompt Should Be To Install XP Press Enter&#92;ThenPressF8  For The License Agreement.&#92;Then To Install A Fresh Copy Of Windows Press Esc.You Must Delete All Of The Existing Partitions Here.Press D Then Enter Then L.Repeat 'Till All The partitions Are Del.There Should Be One Partition That Says"Raw"This Should Be C Drive...Press Enter Again.You Should See Format Options..Always Choose The NTFS File System.Long Format Or Quick Format Doesn't Matter..You Should Be On Your Way Now.
941041
If using XP, goto start, control panel, click on admin tools,  then computer management,  then click on disk managment, then right click the letter of the drive you want to change and left click  change drive letter.
900567
you could just throw in a windows xp cd and delete the partitions\nthen format it back to ntfs
432920
If you have a Windows boot disk or even any Operating System installation CD, you can format the hard drive by opening up the formatting utility or "installing" the operating system.\n\nSome bios(es) have formatting capabilities. FDISK.exe is the executable that could also be used if you can at least start up in DOS mode.\n\n***Remember you might lose important information.
601467
To format your harddrive you will need to get a recovery disc or a Windows CD. \nNo boot disc is necessary unless you are trying to install Windows 95. \nThe recovery disc will usually come with your computer, if you dont have one, you will need to call your computer manufacturing company and order one. \nThe recovery disc and the windows CD will partition your harddrive and it will wipe out your memory and start from fresh.