formatting hard drive

[eMEraLdwPn]

just want to make sure before i do this - if i want to backup some stuff on my hard drive, can i partition it, put whatever i want to keep on the separate partition, and then format the other partition (which would include xp) and the stuff on the backup partition would remain untouched

[michael_gersitz]

Either way, I would backup it all up on cd or dvd first...

[r2d2]

It would indeed, but if you are unsure about doing it then it is probably best to backup to CD/DVD too.

Just make sure you format the correct partition!

[Chris]

One thing shady people did (before two hard drives or external ones were cheap) is put all the shady stuff on a small partition, and then if necessary one could format that partition and leave the rest of the system alone.