Tip #34: Make your Windows PC "brand new" by reformatting it

Time and again I have heard people say that they want to reformat their Windows PC, but they don't know how to do it. And there are actually people who dare not reformat their PC because they fear that they might lose all their data. Mind you, the word "reformat" already makes it clear that you are going to wipe clean everything from your hard drive/partition with Windows on it and reinstall a fresh copy of Windows with nothing except the bare essentials like Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer (no Microsoft Office nor Works included, you will have to install that yourself). To put an end to this, I have decided it's about time I pen down this common computing practice in writing.

If your PC was purchased from an OEM like Dell, HP or Acer, you might have a recovery partition hidden in your hard disk which you can access by pressing a special key combination before Windows starts up when you turn on your PC. This method restores your PC to its original state as when it left the factory. Steps for this vary between OEMs, hence I will not go into detail on that here. Frankly speaking, I don't see why you would want to restore your PC to its factory default state with all the probably-useless applications your OEM has preloaded for you (things like HP MediaSmart, Acer GameZone, Dell Backup etc). If you do want them back, most of them can be downloaded from the OEM's website after you have reinstalled Windows.

To reformat your computer (without using OEM recovery methods), you will need:

• 

  These are the discs for reinstalling
  Windows Vista and upgrading to
  Windows 7 which Dell gave to me.

  Windows installation disc (i.e. Windows Vista or Windows 7 DVD) - there are many ways you can get these, through legal and illegal channels. If you purchased your computer from an OEM like Dell or HP and it came with genuine Windows, there should be a disc you can use for this. If not (or if you lost the disc, but you still have the sticker with the license key beneath your laptop or on your desktop CPU), you can borrow someone else's disc. Windows will still be genuine if you use back your genuine license key during the installation.
• Backup media - to backup your data. This could be just a pendrive, an external hard drive, or another partition you have on your hard disk.
• Some guts - the idea of wiping out an entire hard disk/partition at a single click might be a bit daunting for first-timers (even for me when I did it for the first time). Just be confident that you've backed up everything you need, take a deep breath and click away.
• ... and of course, patience.

Things you may need after reformatting:

• Installation files for programs you use - including but not limited to Microsoft Office, disc-burning software like Roxio and Nero, Adobe Photoshop etc.
• Drivers for your hardware - if you are installing Windows 7, then this shouldn't be of concern to you. The most common drivers which are missing are usually the display, sound and networking ones. Windows Vista may need some drivers, while Windows XP might need even more. In some cases you may not even be able to go online after Windows has been reinstalled (usually in the case of Windows XP); either download from your OEM's website and backup the drivers before reformatting, or use another computer to download them.

The overall procedure for reinstalling Windows XP, Vista and 7 is roughly the same, with some differences in the options which are presented during installation. To encourage more people to upgrade to Windows 7, I have decided to write the following steps based solely on Windows 7, because it's just much easier and more straightforward to install. Installing Vista is similar to 7 (the order in which options are presented is different), but for XP it is totally different (see bottom of this post for more info on this).

Step 0: Backup
I have to stress the point again that reformatting *will* delete all your files and programs on your Windows partition. Double-check that you have indeed made a backup of everything you want to keep before you proceed to step 1. Programs cannot be backed up, they will need to be reinstalled, so if you have the installers, make a backup of those. (don't bother copying the shortcuts from your Desktop because they won't work after Windows has been reinstalled)

From this point onwards, your computer will be restarted and you won't be able to continue reading this. Print this page out, or use another computer.

Step 1: Boot from the Windows disc

A sample of what you might see. In this case the key to
choose the boot device is F12.

Probably the hardest step of all. Place the disc into your DVD drive. Ignore anything that pops out on your screen and restart your computer. After Windows shuts down and your PC is "turning on" again, you will see the usual OEM logo (a big Dell or HP logo on the screen) or power-on self test screen (shows what processor you have, amount of memory, hard disks and optical drives). Look at the top, bottom and corners of this screen for anything which says anything like:

• Press <some key> to choose boot device
• Press <some key> for boot menu
• Press <some key> for boot options

Choose your language, time and currency format and
keyboard input method.

and press the <some key> mentioned. This varies from system to system, the ones I have seen are F12 on Dell systems, F2 and F9 on some others. You must be very alert once your screen turns black after Windows shuts down because very often this screen flashes by very quickly and it's very easy to miss. If you miss it, push the reset button on your CPU or turn your computer off and on again, and try again. When the boot device menu appears after pressing the key, choose your DVD drive. You might get a prompt saying "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD..." - just press any key as it says. If all goes well, you should see "Windows is loading files" and you will be greeted by the setup wizard.

Step 2: Begin Windows Setup

Choose the partition which currently has your old Windows.

Choose your language, time and currency format (there is English (Malaysia) in Windows 7) and keyboard input method (usually this is US). Click Next, then click Install now. (Read the license terms), tick the box which says that you accept the terms and click Next.

The wizard should be asking which type of installation you want. Choose Custom (advanced). Setup will then ask you where you want to install Windows. A list of disks and their partitions will be shown. Setup should highlight the partition which you want to reinstall Windows, If not, choose it manually. Now click on Drive options (advanced) and then Format. Confirm that you want to format it by clicking OK in the warning prompt. Wait for the partition to be formatted, then click Next.

NOTE: if you backed up your files onto a backup partition, be careful to NOT accidentally format it during this stage!

Step 3: Installing Windows

Setup will continue on its own after several restarts.

Take a deep breath, and relax. You've done a great job so far. Setup will continue on its own for now as it copies files to your hard drive. This could take as little as 20 minutes or up to 1 hour. Once it has finished copying, Setup will restart your computer. This time, don't press the key to enter the boot menu, nor "press any key to boot from CD or DVD". Just let your computer boot as it normally would, from the hard drive. You should then be greeted by the familiar "Starting Windows" screen. After Setup does a few more things, it will restart your computer again. Once again, just let your computer boot normally. After "Starting Windows" and a few initial preparations and checks, Setup will ask you to create a user name, as well as to name your computer. Click Next. Set a password for your account, if you want to, though Windows recommends that you do. Proceed by clicking Next.

Now, look for the 25-character license key underneath your laptop / on your CPU / on the original box packaging of the disc, and type it in. Leave Automatically activate Windows when I'm online ticked. If you do not type in a license key now, you can still finish the installation, but Windows will function in trial mode for 30 days only, after which you must enter a license key (or use a loader to crack Windows *wink wink*). Moving on, tell Windows to Use recommended settings to protect your computer by automatically downloading updates. Set the time and date as well as time zone if any of them are wrong.

If you are using a laptop with WiFi, Windows will begin to look for a hotspot and ask you to connect to it to test Internet connectivity. This is not a must, you can skip this step and do it later. If you are using a desktop which is already connected to a LAN, then tell Windows the location of your computer. This determines some security and privacy settings, such as whether other computers on the network can see your computer. In a few moments you should see "Welcome", and perhaps a prompt to ask you to login using your password, and then *poof*! You're looking at the Desktop!!

No pretty glassy effects here though, since VirtualBox still doesn't support DirectX yet.

Now that you have reinstalled Windows, you can start moving your files back into the Documents and other folders, as well as install your programs. If you were using Windows 7 before this, then welcome back. If you're new to Windows 7, enjoy it's responsiveness and improvements over Vista!

You can refer to this page on the Windows website for step-by-step guides to install Windows Vista and XP.

Reformatting your computer is something you should do when you notice that your system is slowing down very often, or seriously infected by viruses/Trojans/worms which no antivirus software can even fix. Depending on how you use your computer, you may reformat once a year, every few years, or even every three months (if you often install and uninstall many programs).

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If you are installing Windows XP:

• Unlike Windows 7, Windows XP's Setup will begin in a DOS-like blue-screen where you only use the keyboard. When Setup begins, it will flash some instructions below to press certain keys for special setups - ignore these. Setup will then load files it needs before asking you to agree to the license agreement and select the partition you want to install Windows XP.
• After the first restart, Setup will continue in a prettier-looking GUI (graphical user interface). However it will pause from time-to-time to ask questions such as regional and language settings, time and date, license key and networking settings. Unlike Windows Vista and 7, you cannot proceed with Setup without typing a license key at this stage. Make sure you have the license key before you begin the reformat.
• During the last stage, Setup will ask you to create user accounts without passwords, then connect to the Internet to activate Windows. If you cannot connect to the Internet at this point of time, you will need to activate Windows yourself later.