When you right click the hard drive icon on XP, and it says format does that completely swip everythng off the hard drive? If so where does all of that saved information go to? And if I do that will I have to re install windows XP?
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When you right click the hard drive icon on XP, and it says format does that completely swip everythng off the hard drive? If so where does all of that saved information go to? And if I do that will I have to re install windows XP?
If you click 'format' - you will DELETE everything from the drive you are formatting. The information is not 'saved' anywhere - it is deleted. If you format the drive you have your operating system on - you will have to reinstall your operating system. Since I've never used the format option in Windows on a drive in use . . . I'm not sure it will allow you to actually do this - it might . . . shutdown . . . display the BSOD . . . or something similar before completion.
V.
i thought this thread was about me :)
you'll get an error.Quote:
I'm not sure it will allow you to actually do this
you may be interested in this...
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question578.htm
nah not about you...sorry lol
But thanx for the site it really made since...
So if i don't have the xp cd then I shoudn't format right?
Well you should have a recovery CD or a Operating System CD that you can boot off if u want to format.
once you format you will need either a boot disc or boot cd to boot whatever you want like windows or linux, depends if you BIOS boots with a CD, if not then you need a boot disc (floppy)
and yes you shouldn't be formatting unless you have an OS but that only applies if you are formatting the drive with the OS on it, you didnt mention this, but if you are formatting a secondary drive set up as slave then you could format it with no harm done to OS, and yes the files would be gone on that drive ;)