How do I format a new HP laptop with Window Vista Home Premium?

[italiandragon]

Hi, I just bought a new HP laptop which came with Vista Home Premium and unfortunately Norton too.
I had a few issue with internet wireless connections, my wife installed a driver of the Netgear router that caused the sudden crash of Vista. After 2 crashes I removed that driver but since I`m fussy about it , would prefer to format the new laptop and install again Vista and start again with a fresh hard drive problem free.

I don`t format harddrives from years so I`d appreciate if someone could gives me advices and instructions on how to to proceed from A to Z, especially since I remember that formatting in WIN98 was easy from DOS but already with XP was harder to do it......and with Vista I don`t know where to start.

Thank you in advance

 

[gmtfan]

Just put Vista DVD and reboot your laptop, and start to install fresh Vista. In the installation process, you will be asked to format the HDD.

Or before install new Vista, If you want to format HDD first, and also want to play with you HDD, then you should download a CD so call Hiren's Boot CD. It's free and has many tools that you can use to format your HDD, but I recommend to use Partition Magic - Right click on your HDD, chose FORMAT. That's all.

PS: I don't know what is the driver of wireless router? Router is a standalone device.

 

[italiandragon]

Just put Vista DVD and reboot your laptop, and start to install fresh Vista. In the installation process, you will be asked to format the HDD.

Or before install new Vista, If you want to format HDD first, and also want to play with you HDD, then you should download a CD so call Hiren's Boot CD. It's free and has many tools that you can use to format your HDD, but I recommend to use Partition Magic - Right click on your HDD, chose FORMAT. That's all.

PS: I don't know what is the driver of wireless router? Router is a standalone device.

thank you very much for your reply, sorry I made a mistake:

the driver was for the NetGear Adapter that connect by wireless to the Router.

I`d prefer to avoid playing with other software so I`d choose option 1.

Thank you

 

[Dooodles]

I would go in to BIOS and set boot device to har-drive to cdrom and then load up your machine and when it says press any key to boot from disk. Hit one and then it sets it all up. Follow the on screen advice.