Vista - Formatting the Hardrive

I was reading how to format my HP computer and it says "Disconnect all connected devices (such as the Personal Media Drive, USB drives, printer, and fax), remove media from drives, and remove any recently added internal hardware. Do not disconnect the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and power cord."

Do I really need to disconnect anything I recently put into my computer to upgrade it. This step they call for seems useless? What do you guys think

No you don't need to remove everything that you have added to your computer but make sure you remove the external devices when you install your OS.

Thanks for the reply, it just seems pretty strange that they would ask that!

That's HP for you to do extra things when you don't need too.

That is the same way they put tons of software in their HP computers when you don't need them. Lol Oops, off topic :P

Hi EricGoen, and Welcome to the Vista Forums

If you are doing a format and re-install from a retail Vista disk then it would be unnecessary and in fact probably unwise to remove any new internal hardware. All external hardware should be removed to ease the install.

If, however you are doing a re-install to factory settings using the supplied HP software it may be advisable to set-up the PC as close to how it was when shipped, as the system uses an Imaging technique with all the drivers pre-loaded.

For example, if you have added a graphics card to replace the on-board graphics then you could find that the graphics loaded by the image would be for the on-board and not you new card, not a good thing

If you have had to replace a hard drive due to failure then this of course would have to remain.

The OEM re-image software is unfortunately rather inflexible in operation so need all the help it can get