[SOLVED] Formatting Virus Ridden Hard Drive

[jwill12154121]

I have an extremely old pc that I am trying to get to at least run minecraft. This pc also happened to get over 1000 detections on malwarebytes scan, including some form of malware that seems to put the computer to sleep when it is detected. I have windows 10 on my other machine, and am downloading media creation tool to fresh boot from flash drive. I do not know how to format my hard drive while it is the only drive in my computer. I am fully aware that it will be deleting windows, I want everything gone. My main question here is, can you set a flash drive to be the boot drive( Windows C: ) for the machine in order to format the hard drive? The flash drive itself is 32 gigs. I just need to get this junk off of the old hard drive. Thanks in advance 😀

TLDR: Is there any way to format a hard drive, even when it is the only storage device that will be staying in the computer

 

[USAFRet]

Yes.
You do a fresh install, deleting ALL partitions in the process.

Download the MediaCreation tool, run it to make the install on the flash drive.
Boot from that in the infected PC.

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

Section II, Step 6 & 7 speak to deleting all existing partitions.

 

[jwill12154121]

Ok so this is possible even if the hard drive is the only storage in the machine, correct?
Edit: My only use for the flash drive is to contain windows, also the machine I am trying to fix is running windows 7 at the moment, I don't know if that would cause any issues

 

[USAFRet]

Ok so this is possible even if the hard drive is the only storage in the machine, correct?
Edit: My only use for the flash drive is to contain windows, also the machine I am trying to fix is running windows 7 at the moment, I don't know if that would cause any issues

You make the install thing on the flash drive.
Then. you boot from that flash drive, and start the install process.
In the process, you wipe and install the OS on the internal hard drive.

Yes, this is the typical every day method to install Windows.

 

[jwill12154121]

You make the install thing on the flash drive.
Then. you boot from that flash drive, and start the install process.
In the process, you wipe and install the OS on the internal hard drive.

Yes, this is the typical every day method to install Windows.

Thank you very much. I will be trying this as soon as windows is finished downloading on to the flash drive. These viruses have me irritated. If I remember I will post an update to this thread.

 

[USAFRet]

Thank you very much. I will be trying this as soon as windows is finished downloading on to the flash drive. These viruses have me irritated. If I remember I will post an update to this thread.

Follow that How To link above, and you'll be fine.