Reformat a Laptop
If your computer has recently been attacked by a virus and you are still feeling the effects despite getting rid of it, you may want to reformat your laptop. Reformatting your laptop involves completely erasing the hard drive and it is the surest and most effective way to clean your computer. The procedure to reformat a laptop is rather simple in today's world. The manufacturer either provides the owner with a copy of the operating system (OS) or they create a restoration partition on the hard drive. Before beginning, however, it is important that you back up all of your information on an external hard drive or CDs and DVDs or else you will lose all of it in the process.
Contents
Steps
Reformatting your Laptop with Installation CDs
- Back up your hard drive. Reformatting your laptop will cause you to lose all of your information so it is recommended that you back up your hard drive on an external hard drive, CDs, or DVDs if you wish to keep it.
- Determine which method of restoration is provided by the manufacturer. If you received a set of installation CDs with your machine, then use this. If you did not, your computer may have a restore partition set up, which means you will need to employ a different method.
- Insert the operating system disk into your CD/DVD drive. It normally auto-runs and will open to a menu, or options page. Select the option for installing a fresh copy of the operating system.
- If the CD doesn't run by itself, double click on "My Computer," and then right click on the drive with the OS disk. Click "Auto-Run."
- Wait for the CD to proceed automatically. If you are away from the computer for awhile, it will pause at the next point, awaiting any required input from you. Follow the prompts, be patient and avoid the temptation to intervene. This process may take a few minutes.
- If you are reformatting your laptop hard drive, you will accept the default offerings/settings that the installation disc is asking for.
- Wait for the installation to complete. When the operating system installation is complete, a completely fresh desktop will appear.
Reformatting a Laptop Using Restoration Partition
- Restart your computer. While the machine is rebooting, repeatedly press the F10 key on your keyboard until the machine boots. This will take you into the partition offering you options for repair or restore (reformatting and reloading).
- Select the option for installing a fresh system. The beauty of this system is that you don't have to do anything else. The restore partition will completely run the program to format, reload the OS, install drivers and install all of the original software that came with your laptop.
- Wait for the reformat to complete. This process will usually take around 30 minutes to complete.
Warnings
- When reformatting your laptop, realize that means the hard drive is going to be wiped out and reloaded with a fresh operating system. Any and all data files that you created will be gone so you should back them up to a different location prior to reformatting. Also, once the process has begun and reached a certain point, you are committed. Changing your mind won't undo the damage and your operating system will be gone.
