Reformat a New Hard Drive

[DASAstoria]

The partitions on the hard drive (320 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA) of a 7-year-old Acer Aspire E380 desktop failed. I thought the right thing to do was to replace the drive and format the new one, because I have the factory system & recovery discs. I also have an OS upgrade disc that came with the computer, and which I think has the OS on it (Vista Home Premium).

After I had the drive replaced with a 1 TB Seagate Barracuda, though, I read more online and started to wonder if I can format the new drive with what I have.

I have three questions:

1. Most importantly, can I format the new drive with the factory Acer system disc and recovery disc?

2. Do I need the OS disc?

2. Finally, do you have any advice about the steps I take to do the reformatting?

Thanks so much.

 

[hubbardt]

http://panam.acer.com/acerpanam/desktop/0000/acer/aspiree360/aspiree360faq40.shtml

 

[th3_ory]

You can format the new drive and then install the system and recovery discs

You MAY need the OS disc if the recovery disc doesnt install the OS (But i think the OS comes with the recovery d)

As long as you know how to format there should be any problems. Just feel free to ask more questions

 

[dextermat]

1. Most importantly, can I format the new drive with the factory Acer system disc and recovery disc? = yes it should work

2. Do I need the OS disc? = no since you have the Acer system disc = OS

2. Finally, do you have any advice about the steps I take to do the reformatting? Usually you don't need to reformat, the recovery disk will do all that for you, the only thing let to do after is activate the empty partition if there any free allocated space available.

 

[DASAstoria]

You can format the new drive and then install the system and recovery discs

You MAY need the OS disc if the recovery disc doesnt install the OS (But i think the OS comes with the recovery d)

As long as you know how to format there should be any problems. Just feel free to ask more questions

 

[DASAstoria]

Thanks for the reply. I hope this isn't a foolish question, but I'm confused when you say, "You can format the new drive and then install the system and recovery discs." Do I format the drive before installing the discs, or will installing the discs format the drive?

 

[DASAstoria]

1. Most importantly, can I format the new drive with the factory Acer system disc and recovery disc? = yes it should work

2. Do I need the OS disc? = no since you have the Acer system disc = OS

2. Finally, do you have any advice about the steps I take to do the reformatting? Usually you don't need to reformat, the recovery disk will do all that for you, the only thing let to do after is activate the empty partition if there any free allocated space available.

 

[DASAstoria]

Thanks for your help.

 

[DASAstoria]

http://panam.acer.com/acerpanam/desktop/0000/acer/aspiree360/aspiree360faq40.shtml

Thanks for the link. I've seen several other guides from Acer for using the recovery discs, as well. Each one has different instructions, too. Anyway, I appreciate the help.