Formatting a hard drive in dos is easy to do, if you know what you are doing. For example, to format the drive C:, with a clean erase, you would enter the following at the DOS command prompt: format c: /U. The /U means for DOS to format the drive "unconditionally", in other words, leave to trace behind and wipe the drive clean. This format type takes a while, get a good book to read. If you're in
. a hurry, you can use the /Q switch: format c: /Q. This will use the "quick" format method, which is akin to deleting the table of contents, of a book, keep the rest of the pages in tact, later to be overwritten by new pages. The /Q switch essentially erases the FAT ( File Allocation Table ) on your hard drive, allowing Windows to overwrite any data, or old files, with new data, or new files. Visit http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Hardware_Software/2005/harddrive_format.asp.
