Is there anyway to format drive without using the recovery disk that came with your pc? If so please give steps specifically. Much appreciated.

Fortunately, yes.

Any decent bootdisk will have the necessary DOS tools - you can create one on a Win9x machine or else download a file and use it to make one.

Formatting erases a drive - if you don't have a 'recovery disk' you will need a Windows installation CD - if you don't have either, probably shouldn't proceed.

Here's a FAQ

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There seems to be an awful lot of formatting & reformatting going on lately. I think jboy has commented on this recently too.

Formatting is the LAST thing you should do, & only after you've exhausted all other means to fix your problem. Some people jump right into it not realizing just how much work they have ahead of them to fully restore their system again. Before you get into it, make sure you have a Windows CD to reinstall the OS. You'll also need all the driver disks (sound, video, modem, LAN, chipset, etc). Plus you'll need all your other program disks...anti-virus, for example.

After you're done with all the software installations, you'll have to go online & Run the Windows Update to download all the critical security updates, IE 6.0, SP1, etc...if you're on dialup, this will take hours. You'll also have to update your anti-virus & possibly other programs as well.

Be sure that formatting is an absolute necessity before jumping into it...if you see no other way, make sure you have all the necessary software before you begin, or your "fix" will become more of a nightmare than your original problem.

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Yes, and lest we forget the numerous questions:

"Help, I've just reformatted my drive and now I can't get Windows or anything, HEEELLLLLPPP!"

SO---make SURE that you really, really, really DO want to format the drive, because when you get done, there will be NOTHING on the drive.

Be sure that you have the necessary reinstall media for whatever operating system and software that you want to put back on the thing, and I DO NOT MEAN A BOOT DISK.

There are a lot of people who think formatting means restoring the system. They don't realize it means erasing the hard dive.

ham30 not the end.

How to recover files and folders from formatted or reformatted hard drive?

http://www.uneraser.com/

Active@ UNERASER is a powerful hard drive recovery software for DOS and Windows (Console) that can recover deleted files and folders on FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS systems. It can even restore files from deleted and reformatted partitions.

With this data recovery software NTFS drives can be recognized and deleted items can be recovered while working from DOS and Windows (Console) environment. It is not necessary to install the utility on your system's hard drive, as it fits on a boot floppy disk, removing the possibility of overwriting data which you want to recover.

Warlock

That type of utility is basically in order to recover precious data. It is by no means 100% reliable because it is working on faint tracks of the original data after reformat. The FBI use an advanced form of this of thing.

I would not like to put any money on this restoring a complete system that has been reformatted and expect it to show even reasonable signs of working. Well, if you've done this then I'm happy to stand corrected.

Derek.W