How to format disk using command prompt

Formatting a hard drive or USB drive is the process of complete removal of information from these devices. Sometimes this procedure is accompanied by a change in the type of the file system and creating new sections.

You will need

- A Windows installation disc.

Instruction

There are many ways to format a hard disk or a partition. To perform this procedure by using Windows command shell, you must start it with administrator rights on the computer. Click "start" and then click "Run."

After opening the new menu, type cmd, and press simultaneously the keys Ctrl, Shift and Enter. If the command line is opened without using administrator privileges, then restart the computer. After the dialog box appears, select a user, log in using the account that has sufficient rights. Repeat the procedure for starting the shell.

Enter the command Diskpart and press Enter. Now type List Disk and press Enter. Find out the letter assigned to that partition of the hard diskyou want to format.

Type format D: and press Enter. Of course, in this example D is the drive letter of the driveassigned to the system of the selected partition. After the appearance of the row with the warning that all data from disk will be deleted, then press Y. Wait until the partition has been formatted or disk.

This method does not allow to format the partition of the hard diskon which operating system you're using at the moment. If you want to format the system partition of the disk, restart the computer by inserting in the drive the Windows installation disc.

After starting the installation menu, select "recovery Console" (Windows XP) or "Command prompt" (Windows Vista and 7). Launch the console and enter the command Format C:. Make sure that you specified the correct letter of the drive. To check, use the method described in the third step. You can also type the command dir /w to view the contents of the selected disk and verify the correct drive letter.

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