Today and way back before, when floppy disk drives are almost never included in new computer systems, most of you will never experience the ease of formatting a floppy disk. Almost all the disks that you purchase today, including Cds and DVDS are preformatted (this is done as part of the automated process and checks the disks for errors). From time to time, you may want to reformat a prepared disk that has become corrupted or that contains data that you no longer need. in very rare situations, you may even have to reformat a hard drive on your computer.
To format a disk or computer drive, follow the following steps below:
1. When formatting a floppy,CD,DVD disc,insert the blank or a disk that holds files and folders that you don't need at all.
2. Open the Computer window(start>computer) and then right-click the icon of the drive that holds the disk that you want to reformat.
3. Select the Format command from the drive shortcut menu to open the Format dialog box.
In order to format any hard drive on your computer, your use accounts maybe an administrator. You cannot, however, reformat the drive that contains the Window Vista operating system.
4.(Optional) select the Capacity for the size of the disk that you’re formatting.
When formatting a floppy disk, choose (double-density)capacity 3.5",720Kb,512 bytes/sector if you inserted that kind of disk into your floppy drive.
5.(Optional) By default, Windows Xp selects NTFS (supported by Windows Xp,2000,and Vista)in the File System drop down list box as the file system for which to format the disk. If youre formatting a floppy disk for an older system running Windows 95,98,or ME, select FAT on the File System drop down list.
6.(Optional) Type a label in the Volume Label text box if you want to attach a name to the floppy, hard or flash drive that you can use to identify them.
When you format by using the FAT system, youre restricted to 11, characters,when youre using NTFS system, you can use up to 32 characters.
7.(Optional) Click the Quick Format check box in the Format options(if your reformatting a disk that contains files and folders that you no longer need).If youre formatting a brand new disk, leave the box empty.
8.(Optional)If your formatting a floppy or CD as a startup disk for a MS-DOS computer, click the Create an MS-DOS Startup Disk check box.
9. Click the Start button to begin formatting the disk and then click OK in the alert dialog box warns you that formatting erases all data currently on the disk.
After you click on Start and then OK,Windows keeps you informed of the progress in the Formatting box at the bottom of the Format dialog box. If you need to stop the process before its complete, click the Cancel button.
Formatting Disks in Windows Vista 
