Formatting a new Vista laptop

Hi guys,
I should be getting my new laptop very very soon and want it to be super quick. I've heard advise that formatting the laptop is the most effecient of doing this and therefore having a complete clean laptop without all the bloatware.

I assume that the potential laptops I'll get, either Asus or Toshiba, should have recovery DVD's with them so I'll need to do these first, however after that, I'm sort of strugling on how to format the laptop.

I've formated and re-installed Win Me a couple of times on my 7yr old desktop however have sort of forgotten on the MsDos keys and also it'll probably different since there is no MsDos no more on new laptops. Plus, there is no partitions on the current computer therefore I assume it'll be slightly more complicated to format a new laptop which have many partitions these days.

So could anyone give me some easy clear bullit kind of guide on how to format a new laptop and re-install Vista?


Thanks, jam.

P.S. I'm also really sorry if there is already a guide on this - I couldn't find it.

 

Things have progressed a lot since Windows ME. Windows 2000, XP, and Vista all have a formatting utility built into the installer, and the installation utility will actually prompt you to format the drive. All you have to do is select NTFS (don't use the quick option) and it will format your drive before reinstalling Vista.

 

I've never formatted Windows Vista (since I don't have it), but I assume it's similar to XP.
It's really pretty easy.
You put the Windows CD in the drive and restart your notebook. Something on the screen should show up giving you the option to boot from the CD (and telling you what key to press). When you do that, you'll have a few options. Don't exactly remember what it is since it's been awhile. But this is where you can delete any partitions and you format your drives. It's pretty straight forward, so you should figure it out when you do it yourself.

Summary: Put CD in. Select which partition/drive to format and format it. Once that's done the notebook will restart and it should boot up from the CD. You can now install Windows. You follow the step by step instructions and that's about all there is to it.

Summary of Summary: Boot from CD. Format. Install Windows.

 

Ah rite, lol, no more worries about formatting for COMPLETE noobs then.

Soooo, put in the windows disk, restart and from there instuctions should be on screen. Btw, how do you know which partition all your stuff is on?

 

The installer will show partition sizes, so you may want to boot your notebook at least once to check out partition sizes, but chances are pretty good that everything will be on the largest partition (or the only partition if there is no backup partition). Also, the main partition will generally be named "C," though it is certainly possible to create multiple partitions and then install to something other than "C."

 

Alrite then, thanks Thain. And Thibault aswell

 

If you elect to go with a dell setup...see below.