The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Reformat

    Discussion in 'Asus' started by Tomcool, Jun 1, 2007.

  1. Tomcool

    Tomcool Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    92
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    What's the best way to reformat? I just got my Vista upgrade and wanna reformat before I upgrade. If somone could give me instructions on how to I'd appreciate it.
     
    Tomcool, Jun 1, 2007
    #1
  2. Nrbelex

    Nrbelex Notebook Deity NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    217
    Messages:
    1,286
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    This is the best guide I'm aware of. It's tedious, annoying, and hardly seems worth it if all you have is an upgrade CD...

    ~ Brett
     
    Nrbelex, Jun 1, 2007
    #2
  3. coriolis

    coriolis Notebook Nobel Laureate

    Reputations:
    2,319
    Messages:
    14,119
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    455
    You can either boot into MSDOS and simply do a C: reformat command or just do a quick system restore using the restore discs provided.

    I'm not too familiar with Vista, do they offer to reformat the HD if you upgrade from XP->Vista?
     
    coriolis, Jun 1, 2007
    #3
  4. Nrbelex

    Nrbelex Notebook Deity NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    217
    Messages:
    1,286
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    The problem is that he has an upgrade disc and not a regular install disc. The upgrade disc doesn't allow a clean install which means you must use the workaround described in the link.

    ~ Brett
     
    Nrbelex, Jun 1, 2007
    #4
  5. Tomcool

    Tomcool Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    92
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    How do I boot into MSDOS and reformat?
     
    Tomcool, Jun 1, 2007
    #5
  6. E.B.E.

    E.B.E. NBR Procrastinator

    Reputations:
    1,572
    Messages:
    8,632
    Likes Received:
    4
    Trophy Points:
    206
    Download a FreeDOS CD image, burn it to a CD, boot from it, and issue format C:, format D: from the command prompt
     
    E.B.E., Jun 1, 2007
    #6
  7. Nrbelex

    Nrbelex Notebook Deity NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    217
    Messages:
    1,286
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Well I just read that the Asus upgrade CDs allow you to reformat while doing the upgrade so that's not really necessary. Simply pop the CD into the drive, boot from it and follow the prompts and tell Vista you want it to reformat whatever drive you put it on.

    ~ Brett

    Edit: The person who said that has since realized that theirs was not a clean install.
     
    Nrbelex, Jun 1, 2007
    #7
  8. Tomcool

    Tomcool Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    92
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    nice, thanks
     
    Tomcool, Jun 3, 2007
    #8
  9. Imations

    Imations Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    125
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Whats mean "reformat"...??
    N for what this functions ^_^???
    Thank u for Reply...
     
    Imations, Jun 3, 2007
    #9
  10. Nrbelex

    Nrbelex Notebook Deity NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    217
    Messages:
    1,286
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    To reformat a hard drive is to completely remove all content from the disk including all files, programs and even the operating system, and then starting fresh. Much more detail can be found here.

    ~ Brett
     
    Nrbelex, Jun 4, 2007
    #10
  11. ViciousXUSMC

    ViciousXUSMC Master Viking NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    11,461
    Messages:
    16,824
    Likes Received:
    76
    Trophy Points:
    466
    I just ordered the acedimic upgrade disk for 70$ for this reason. No way would I drop 200$+ for a new OS.
     
    ViciousXUSMC, Jun 4, 2007
    #11