I need to format may hard drive due to viruses ...i have a windows 7 starter os. how do i format it?

You'll need to restart the formatting and installation of the OS.

It may because you either deleted the drive and did not re assign a drive letter to it, or it may be due to format, when you using Windows OS, your hard disk should be either in FAT or NTFS format, if you have linux as secondary os, you may have accidental format the drive with linux OS. Try changing the format to NTFS or FAT. Try and reply back

Hi,

If I understand you correctly you had a previous operating system installed on one hard drive and you just now installed Windows 7 but on a separate drive? When you boot the machine if gives you two boot options, the old OS and the NEW OS?

What your going to have to do is format the drive(erase) that contains the old operating system. Format as NTFS.

Try unplugging the old drive, making sure the new drive is set to master and not slave. Boot up the computer.
When you boot up your computer you should immediately get options. One of these options should say "press delete for bios" or press "f6 for settings" You need to go into the bios and make sure the drive with Windows 7 is set to your primary drive in the boot order(hard drive should be first in boot list). We want the computer to boot to the new drive first.

Once you get into Windows you can use a program like partition magic to format the old drive to use as just storage space. You can even use "diskpart' which is an old windows command line utility.

If you reinsert the Windows Disk when you are booting up you will get some recovery options, and if I recall correctly one of these should let you format hard drive space. So, you may be able to do it from there.

Where exactly does the error come up in the boot process? Are you able to boot into safe mode? It may be easier for you to just reinstall Windows 7. If you boot the computer with the disk in the drive, and the BIOS set to boot first to the disk, then during the installation configuration you should be able to have Windows just format the old drive to use as space and install the MBR on the new drive.



-G33k

I would have recomended Norton Antivirus or a full programme anti virus to clean your drive. However, it is almost too late for repairs.
You need to format your drive but as there seems to be a "Worm" type virus, I guess due to the problems you are having trying to re install OS, it will keep reinfecting the drive due to it being resident in the memory.
You really need an antivirus programme to clean your Sony Vaio before you can succesfully place an uninfected OS on your drive. I hope the recovery partion is not infected as well, a good anti virus programme will clean it though. When it is clean, boot with a system disk with the same OS on it and when you get to drive "C" hopefully drive "D" will be available, assuming "D" is the recovery drive partition.

When you get your anti virus disk, you will need it to be a bootable disk with the format command on it. When it has been cleaned you can then format the disk and put your recovery OS disk back on.
Hope this helps.

Blue screen error may generally appear for three important reasons : 1.If you system is infected with some viruses and your hard drive has bad sectors in it.
2. If your memory card has gone bad or not properly pluged.
3. The OS has gone corupt due to virus attack.....

Resolution: 1. Go ahead and do a complete format on your hard drive and then install the OS, i.e., Win XP.
2.Try replacing your Memory Card in your system.
3. Change your hard drive or conatct Geek Squad @ 1-800-433-5778 for data recovery.

Unfortunately, this type of virus is actually a virus that is a result of the company that actually has you going to the website to install the anti-virus software, nice huh?
So, there is really only one 100% foolproof way of eliminating this virus and that is by formatting your Hard Drive and reinstalling windows. Now, if you have extremely valuabe information on that drive that you can't afford to lose, then you can perform a small trick. You can install a new Hard Drive in the #1 position of the Seriel Cable or PCMI Position #1 if an older PC. If you are not familiar with the inside of your PC, you'll need to take your PC to a local PC Repair shop and ask them to install a new Hard Drive and OS and pull the data off the old hard drive and have it copied over to the new Hard Drive. Sometimes this may not be possible, but it can't hurt to try. Then the infected drive can be formatted and you'll have 2 drives in your PC, your old one being just a great back up spare drive.
If you don't have such valuable data on the drive, then the process is much simpler. Just reinstall your Windows OS (Windows 7, Vista, XP) whatever version of Windows Software you have. You will need the original Windows OS installation disk if it is an OEM version of Windows, or go and purchase a Full version of Windows and install from the CD.
When you go to install Windows, you will be asked if you wish to format disk prior to installing, make sure you select yes. Then you drive will be formatted, automatically removing the virus, then reinstalling windows on newly formatted Hard Disk.

Hope that helps

1. First format all the other partitions in your system except the Drive in which the OS is installed.
2. Most probably the OS drive is C: Drive.
3. Then get an operating system CD/DVD Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7
4. Then on start up insert the OS cd and select the option to install the OS.
5. When you click next there will be an option to specify the Drive in which you will be installing the OS.
6. Select the Drive in which the previous OS had been installed.
7. Now in the next stage there will be option whether to install the OS with or without formatting Drive.
8. Select the Format Drive Option and click Next.
9. Congratulations you have formatted all the partitions in your System/Laptop/PC

try formatting your laptop again with vista O.S. but dont install anti virus after installing it because there might be some conflict with the anti virus you installed with the O.S.

its not a virus as when you format your hard drive it would wipe it out ... how many hard drive do you have ? if you have 2 install a new instalation to the good hard drive and you should get to the part of xp that says do you want to format the partition on this hard drive by pressing ( f ) do this and when your pc has finished re-installing you can click on my computer in your start menu then right click on the bad hard drive and run a full format from there ...

hope this helps ... jedi-inc ....

Hi,

It is always best to include the OS in the post which would be more easy for us to give the instructions.

In this case you can format the hard drive.

Formatting the Drive
in Windows 2000 or XP

1. Disable any anti-virus software you may have running in
the background.

2. Double-click on My Computer/Explorer. In the My
Computer/Explorer window you should see the icon and
drive letter for the AcomData Drive.

(If you are not sure which drive letter represents the AcomData Drive, turn it off and see which one of the icons disappears. Then turn on the Drive and wait for the drive letter to reappear.)

3. Right-click on the drive letter and select Format… in the
pop-up menu. The Format dialog box will appear.

4. Under Capacity, verify the Drive capacity. It should be
close to the stated capacity of your Drive in gigabytes.

5. In the File System pop-up menu, select NTFS. As NTFS file system is more secure than the FAT32 or FAT.

6. In the Allocation unit size pop up, select “Default alloca-
tion size.”

7. In the Volume label field, type in a name for the Drive. You
should give the drive a unique name that will allow you
to easily distinguish it from other hard drives or storage
devices.

8. The default formatting option is Full format, however
under Format options you can select Quick Format. A
Full format will take about 30-90 minutes.

A Quick format will take just a few minutes, but will do less verifying of the Drive than a Full format will. Do not check Enable Compression.

9. Click Start. Once the format process is complete, the Drive
will be ready to use.

Formatting the Drive
in Windows 98SE or Me

1. Disable any anti-virus software you may have running in
the background.

2. Double-click on the My Computer icon. In the My
Computer window you should see an icon and drive let-
ter for the AcomData Drive.

(If you are not sure which icon represents the Drive, turn off the Drive and see which icon disappears. Then turn the Drive back on and wait for the icon to reappear.)

3. Right-click on the drive letter and select Format. In the
Format window, verify the Drive’s capacity; it should be
close to the stated capacity of your Drive in megabytes.

4. Under Format type, select Full; everything else should be
left at the default setting. In the Label field under Other
options you may assign a name to the Drive.

You should give the drive a unique name that will allow you to easily distinguish it from other hard drives or storage devices.
(The name you assign is limited to 8 characters and no
symbols are allowed.)

5. Click Start. The following warning message will appear:
“This device is either a hard disk or a large removable
disk.

Formatting it will destroy all files currently on the
drive. Are you sure you want to format this drive?” If no
data was previously written to the Drive or you already
backed up the data you wish to keep, click OK.

6. If you see a warning from an antivirus program, click
Exclude.

7. When formatting is complete, you will be asked to run a
thorough Scandisk. Periodically running Scandisk is a part
of regular hard drive maintenance. If you do not wish to
run Scandisk at this time, close the Format window.

Formatting the Drive
in Mac OS X

1. Disable any anti-virus software you may have running in
the background.

2. Launch the Disk Utility application (Applications folder >
Utilities folder > Disk Utility). The Disk Utility window will
open with a small window at left and a larger window
with a series of tabs at the top.

3. You should see the Drive listed in the left window. Click
on the Drive to highlight it. Information about the Drive
will appear in the Information window.

4. Click on the Erase tab. In the Erase window you will see a
Volume Format pop-up menu and a Name field.

5. From the Volume Format pop-up, select Mac OS
Extended. (With Mac OS 10.3.x or later, you have the
option of selecting Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

(Journaling is a feature that helps protect the file system
against power outages or hardware failures, reducing the
need for repairs. We recommend using journaling, if avail-
able.)

6. In the Name field, type in a name for the Drive. You
should give the drive a unique name that will allow you
to easily distinguish it from other hard drives or storage
devices.

7. Click Erase. You should see an alert pop up with the mes-
sage: “Erasing a disk will destroy all information on all of
the volumes of the disk…” Click Erase.

Once initializing is complete, you should see the Drive listed
in the left window of the Disk Utility screen with whatever
name you assigned. Quit Disk Utility. You should now see
the Drive icon on the Desktop.

Formatting the Drive
in Mac OS 9

Before you can re-format the Drive you will need to restart
your computer from the Mac OS 9 System Software CD that
came with your computer or which you purchased as an
upgrade.

1. Disable any anti-virus software you may have running in
the background.

2. Insert the System Software CD into your CD drive.

3. With your AcomData Drive connected and powered on,
restart the computer and hold down the C key while the
computer is starting up.

4. You will see the alert message: “This disk is unreadable by
this computer. Do you want to initialize this disk?” Click
OK.

5. In the Name field, type in a name for your Drive. You
should give the drive a unique name that will allow you
to easily distinguish it from other hard drives or storage
devices.

6. From the Format menu, select Mac OS Extended.

7. Click Initialize. You should then get the alert message:
“Initializing will erase all information on this disk.” Click
Continue. Once initializing is complete, you should see
the Drive mounted on your Desktop with the name you
assigned.

8. Restart your computer and eject the Mac OS 9 CD, or go
to Control Panels--> Startup Disk and select the comput-
er’s startup disk. Restart the computer.

Good Luck.

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