How to format a laptop or laptop [all methods]? 【Tutorial for newbies】

Formatting a laptop is a process feared by many users, but sooner or later you will have to overcome your fears and face this process, which is becoming easier by the way Microsoft's operating systems have evolved. In the past, it was an expensive process, which involved several hours of configuration and driver installation, but nowadays everything is much more simplified and automated.

Index of contents

How to format a laptop from the system itself without USB or DVD

If your laptop has been recently attacked by a virus and you still feel the effects despite getting rid of it, you may want to reformat your computer to get it working as usual. Formatting your laptop involves completely erasing the hard drive and is the safest and most effective way to clean your computer. In this article we explain step by step how to format a Windows 10 laptop.

The procedure to format a laptop is quite simple thanks to the benefits of current operating systems. The manufacturer provides the owner with a copy of the operating system (OS) or creates a restore partition on the hard drive. However, before you start, it is important that you back up all of your information to an external hard drive or CD or DVD, otherwise you will lose it all in the process.

Previously, this process was much more complex, since it required the creation of a DVD or a USB drive from which to start the computer and then install the operating system. Fortunately, everything has been simplified a lot, and you can do it in a very simple way from Windows 10.

To format a Windows 10 laptop, simply follow these steps:

Go to " Settings ". You can get there by clicking on the gear icon on the Start menu.

The Windows 10 configuration tool will open from which we can access all the configuration options for this operating system. Enter the " Update and security " section where you will find what is not interesting in this case.

Click " Recovery " in the left panel. This will open all the options related to this function.

Once you have logged in, Windows will present you with three main options: Reset this PC, Return to a previous version, and Advanced startup. Resetting this PC is the best option to start again. The advanced boot option allows you to boot from a recovery disc or USB drive, lastly, "Go to a previous build" is made for Windows Insiders who want to go back to a previous version of the operating system after an update is available giving trouble.

Click " Start " under "Reset this PC." This will launch the wizard that will guide us step by step so that we do not have any problems.

The system will offer you the options "Keep my files" or "Delete all", depending on whether you want to keep your data files intact. Either way, all the settings will revert to their default values ​​and the apps will be uninstalled. If you choose “Delete all”, cleaning the drive takes much longer, but will make sure that absolutely everything is properly erased, this option is ideal if you want to hand the PC over to someone else.

Once you have clicked on the chosen option, Windows 10 will start preparing for the entire procedure. After that your PC will restart and the whole process will begin, its duration will depend on various factors such as the performance of your computer, the size of the hard disk and the amount of data that has been written to it.

The best thing is that when doing this procedure you choose a time when you are in no rush to use your laptop again, this way you will not have any problem when working calmly, and everything will be much easier.

Visit this link to know step by step how to do the first configuration of Windows 10

Format a laptop from the start menu

This procedure is based on the previous one, but it is even faster to do. What we will have to do is open the start menu and go to the " Restart " option. Holding down the "Shift" key on our keyboard, we are going to click on " restart ", and now we will be shown a menu on a blue background in which we will have to choose as the first option " solve problems"

Next we will obtain the options identical to the previous procedure. We can either keep our personal files, or remove everything and do a clean installation.

Format portable with bootable USB

Another of the ways we have to format our laptop is using the traditional method, although instead of using a DVD, we are going to do the procedure by creating a bootable USB with a copy of Windows 10 and inserting it during the startup of the computer so that it appears the Windows 10 installation process.

The first thing we will have to do is the bootable USB, the procedure is very simple using the Microsoft tool, Media Creation Tool.

If you want to know the whole procedure, follow our tutorial to create the bootable USB

Set boot sequence in BIOS

Like all equipment, laptops also have a BIOS in which we can modify the boot sequence so that, instead of booting directly from the hard disk, we can boot either a DVD or a USB.

As it could not be otherwise, we also have a tutorial in which we explain very well how to configure the BIOS boot sequence step by step.

In the new UEFI BIOS, it will not be necessary to modify the boot sequence, since it has a boot menu that will detect one by one the devices connected to our computer, including USB storage drives.

What we will have to do is connect the USB to the computer and start it. Immediately after, we will have to repeatedly press the "F8" key to exit this menu. In some devices it is not this key, so we can also try "Esc", "F11", F12 "or other F keys. It is also possible that when starting the equipment we see a message of the type “ Press to enter boot menu ”or similar.

System installation process

Once our USB boots, a screen like the following will appear:

In it we will have to give " Install now " and follow one by one the steps that the wizard will mark for us.

The first window that appears will click on " I do not have a product key ", and that is that we do not have one. Otherwise we will enter the password to continue. We should not worry, because, by default, the system key on a laptop is stored in the BIOS and the system will automatically be validated when we finish the installation.

In the next window we will have to select the version of Windows that we want to install. In this step, it is recommended to install the same version that we had in the beginning, so that our system continues to be correctly activated with the corresponding key that will be stored.

The next thing that will appear is a window indicating if we want to " Update Windows " or " perform a custom installation ". We will have to choose the second option since if we choose “ Update ” the following message will appear.

In the next window of the wizard we will see a tool for creating partitions to install our system. This step is important because laptops typically have multiple partitions created by default called OEMs, which are necessary to store system recovery files.

We will quickly notice this because they will have a designated space of 400MB, 800MB or generally small space not exceeding 2GB. We must leave these partitions as they are, and select the largest partition we see to install our system.

To learn more, visit our tutorial on what is an OEM partition and how to detect it.

A very good trick to know which is the partition where our operating system is currently installed, is to look for the word " Main " in the right area of ​​the tool. If there are several similar ones, when we select one, and click on “ Next ”, a message will be shown basically saying that an operating system is already installed on this partition.

Well, here we will be informed that the files from the old Windows installation will be moved to a folder called Windows.old, in which, in addition to the system, our personal files will also be stored so that we can later easily recover them.

Finally, we can also absolutely delete all partitions with the " delete " button selecting each one, and only keep a new partition to install the system on it.

In any case, when everything is as we want, click on " next " to proceed with the installation of Windows.

Visit this link to know step by step how to do the first configuration of Windows 10

Recover Windows.old files

If, as we indicated before, the operating system is installed on the partition in which it was already, now if we go to "C: \" we will see that there is a folder called Windows.old. Our personal files (those of documents), will be in the path “ Windows.old \ Users \ \ ”

In this way we will have successfully completed the installation of Windows 10 on our laptop.

Activate Windows 10

In this last method, if we install a different version of Windows from the one we had, it will be necessary to validate the product at the end of the installation. This will require obtaining a Windows 10 license for that version.

So that you can find a cheap Windows license we recommend our tutorial on where to buy a cheap Windows license

If not, what you have to do is reinstall Windows 10 again with the version that was already activated on your factory laptop.

This ends our article on how to format a laptop step by step, we hope you find it very useful.

We also recommend:

Remember that you can share the article on social networks so that it can help more users who need it.