How to format windows 7 without cd

[juliusrossb]

how to format windows 7 w/out cd?

 

[bgrt]

If you're really just looking to wipe your hard drive, take a look at dban (dban.org) which you can burn onto a bootable CD/USB and wipe your HDD clean.

 

[The Stealthinator]

To reformat your hard disk, go into My Computer and right-click on the drive that has Windows 7 installed. Select Format which will erase all the data on that drive. If you want to reinstall Windows, you will need a CD to do it unless you download a copy of the OS off the Microsoft site and burn it to a USB. You will need your own product key, however. Hope this helps.

 

[hang-the-9]

To reformat your hard disk, go into My Computer and right-click on the drive that has Windows 7 installed. Select Format which will erase all the data on that drive. If you want to reinstall Windows, you will need a CD to do it unless you download a copy of the OS off the Microsoft site and burn it to a USB. You will need your own product key, however. Hope this helps.

You can't format a system disk that way that's in use, you need to boot to an outside operating system first.

 

[spookyman]

Just make a bootable USB drive. Flash or external does not matter. You can use Google on how to do it.

If you are wanting to install windows from a USB drive, copy the setup folder from the Windows disk to the USB drive.

If you are wanting to wipe the drive then there are a few programs available for this feature too.

 

[xlr82scs]

This will walk through the steps to create a bootable USB flash drive for the purpose of installing a Vista or Windows 7 OS. These instructions assume that you have a computer with Windows Vista installed on it.
Required:
USB Flash Drive (4GB+)
Microsoft OS Disk (Vista / Windows 7)
A computer running Vista / Windows 7
Step 1: Format the Drive
The steps here are to use the command line to format the disk properly using the diskpart utility. [Be warned: this will erase everything on your drive. Be careful.]
Plug in your USB Flash Drive
Open a command prompt as administrator (Right click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt and select “Run as administrator”
Find the drive number of your USB Drive by typing the following into the Command Prompt window:
diskpart
list disk
The number of your USB drive will listed. You’ll need this for the next step. I’ll assume that the USB flash drive is disk 1.
Format the drive by typing the next instructions into the same window. Replace the number “1” with the number of your disk below.
select disk 1
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=NTFS
assign
exit
When that is done you’ll have a formatted USB flash drive ready to be made bootable.
Step 2: Make the Drive Bootable
Next we’ll use the bootsect utility that comes on the Vista or Windows 7 disk to make the flash drive bootable. In the same command window that you were using in Step 1:
Insert your Windows Vista / 7 DVD into your drive.
Change directory to the DVD’s boot directory where bootsect lives:
d:
cd d:\boot
Use bootsect to set the USB as a bootable NTFS drive prepared for a Vista/7 image. I’m assuming that your USB flash drive has been labeled disk G:\ by the computer:
bootsect /nt60 g:
You can now close the command prompt window, we’re done here.
Step 3: Copy the installation DVD to the USB drive
The easiest way is to use Windows explorer to copy all of the files on your DVD on to the formatted flash drive. After you’ve copied all of the files the disk you are ready to go.
Step 4: Set your BIOS to boot from USB
This is where you’re on your own since every computer is different. Most BIOS’s allow you to hit a key at boot and select a boot option.

Hope this helps!