What do i need to reformat my computer

If you're opening Disk Management for the first time after installing a new drive, you'll likely be prompted to initialize the disk. Don't worry if this window doesn't appear. Select the drive you want to format. All of your drives and partitions will be listed in Disk Management. If you've just installed a new drive, it will likely be on its own row with the "Unallocated" label.

Expand the "Status" column to see more details about each partition. You cannot format the "Boot" partition in Windows, as this is the partition that Windows is installed on.

Formatting will delete all of the data on the disk, so make absolutely sure you select the correct one. Create a partition if necessary. If the drive is Unallocated, you will need to right-click on it and select "New Simple Volume". Follow the prompts to create a partition out of the Unallocated space. Right-click on the drive or partition and select "Format".

This will open the Format window. Set your formatting options. You can give the drive a new name Volume label , as well as choose its file system. You can choose whether or not you want to perform a quick format. Only uncheck this option if you are worried that your drive is damaged. Wait for the format to complete. Click the Format button once you are satisfied with your settings. The formatting process may take a few minutes.

Once the formatting is complete, you can use the drive to store files and install programs to it. Method 3. You can shrink any of your existing drives to convert the free space on them into a new partition.

This can be useful if you have a lot of free space on a drive and want to create a dedicated drive for specific files, such as media. You can also right-click the Start button in Windows 8 and 10 to select Disk Management from the menu.

Select the partition that you want to shrink. You can shrink any partition that has some free space. You'll likely want to choose one that you can at least get several GB out of to make your new partition useful. Make sure to leave enough space for the existing partition, especially if it is your boot partition. Right-click the partition and select "Shrink volume".

This will open a new window after Disk Management determines how much space is available to create a new partition out of. Enter in the size of your new partition.

The window will display how much space is available to shrink the existing drive in megabytes MB. You'll need to enter in the size you want to shrink the drive by creating a new partition that size. Start the shrinking process. Click "Shrink" to carve out the space that you specified in the existing drive. It will appear in Disk Management as Unallocated space on the same drive as the old partition.

Create a partition. Right-click on the unallocated space and select "New simple volume". This will start the Simple Volume Wizard. Follow the prompts to create the partition. You'll be able to select how much of the Unallocated space you want to use for the new partition.

You'll also be assigning a drive letter. Format the new partition. During the wizard, you'll be prompted to format the partition. You can format it with a file system now, or do it later by performing the steps in the previous method. This option is only available if the older OS was previously upgraded to Windows Click either Keep my files or Remove everything , depending on whether you want to keep your data files intact.

If not, Remove everything will do as it says: delete all of your files, photos and programs. Either way, all of your settings will return to their defaults and apps will be uninstalled. Cleaning the drive takes a lot longer but will make sure that, if you're giving the computer away, the next person can't recover your erased files. If you're keeping the computer, choose Keep my files. Regardless of your choice above, the next step is to decide whether to install Windows via the cloud or locally from your device.

If you need additional help refreshing, resetting, or restoring your PC, check out the Repair and Recovery community pages in the Windows forum for solutions that other people have found for problems they've experienced. Windows 8. Need more help? Join the discussion. Was this information helpful? Yes No. Thank you! Any more feedback? The more you tell us the more we can help. Can you help us improve? Resolved my issue. Clear instructions. Easy to follow. No jargon. If you only want to format the drive on which Windows 8 is installed, select Only the drive where Windows is installed.

To format all drives on the computer, select All drives. Click Fully clean the drive. This option the second one ensures that the drive is completely formatted.

If you're planning to keep the PC and aren't worried about people accessing your deleted files, you can click Just remove my files.

This won't format the drive, though. DBAN and similar tools make it impossible for anyone to find fragments of your deleted files, so this might be useful if you plan to sell or give away your PC. Just make sure you have recovery media so you can reinstall Windows afterward. Once the PC is formatted, it will reboot and prompt you to reinstall Windows.

Follow the on-screen instructions if you'd like to do so. Method 3. Formatting your Mac will erase all of your data, so make sure you've backed up everything you want to keep. If your Mac is already turned on, reboot it and press this key combination as soon as it turns back on.

This boots your Mac into Recovery Mode. Select Disk Utility. It's the last option on the "macOS Utilities" window. Click Continue. It's at the bottom-right corner. Click the View menu. It's in the menu bar at the top of the screen. Click Show All Devices. This displays all disks connected to your Mac in the left panel. Select the disk you want to format. For example, if you want to format your primary drive on which macOS is installed, you'll select the first disk at the top of the list under "Internal".

Click the Erase button. It's near the top-center part of the window. Select your formatting details. Name: Enter a name to identify the hard drive. Format: Unless you have a specific reason not to do so, leave the default format of your internal hard drive as APFS. Click Erase to format the disk. You may be asked to verify your Apple ID or password. Once the disk is erased and formatted, you'll return to the Disk Utility list.

If you have additional hard drives, you can format them now using Disk Utility. Close Disk Utility. You can do this by clicking the red circle at the top-left corner of the window. Formatting is a process which cleans all your previous data.