how to format my hard drive before installing windows 7

This article describes how you can remove the Linux operating system from your computer, and install a Windows operating system. In the future when your Windows messed up again, you can simply restore to this clean state.For a Microsoft Windows XP version of this article, see 314458. Now you have a clean system, it is best to do a system backup and create a system restore point. At this point, you might want to reinstall all the usual software. After you have login to your account, you will find that all your data will still be intact. Once it is done, it will reboot and prompt you to setup your account. Lastly, you just let the installation do its work. It will then show a prompt saying that your existing files will be backup to the windows.old files. Choose the partition that you are going to reinstall the Windows OS.

Accept the license term and click Next.Ĩ. On the next page, select the option “Go online to get the latest update for installation”.Ħ.

The Windows 7 installation page will appear. If this popup window didn’t appear, open your Windows Explorer, navigate to the DVD drive and run the setup.exe file.Ĥ. A window will popup to ask if you want to “Run setup.exe” or “open the folder”. Put in the installer DVD (or plug in the installer USB).ģ.

Turn on your computer and load up Windows.Ģ. Reinstall Windows 7 without reformatting the hard driveġ. Make sure you have the installer DVD, or the USB drive in hand. As usual, do a backup of all your data before you attempt to follow this tutorial.ģ. However, any other user-created folders in the C: drive will still be intact.Ģ.

All the applications that you have previously installed will be lost. Reinstallation of Windows 7 will wipe the system folder, Program Files and My Document folders. Even after the reinstallation, your data will still be intact. The fact is, you don’t really have to reformat your hard drive to reinstall the OS. However, most people don’t like (or even hate) to do a reinstallation because it means that they have to reformat the hard drive and probably lost some of their precious data.

How to format my hard drive before installing windows 7