Hdd formatted on windows install?

[allburnintegrated]

If you are reinstalling Windows on a hard drive that already has stuff on it, you have to reformat it, yes? Because my friend is insisting that you don't have to.
He claims to have installed Windows 95 on an old hard drive that had stuff on it.

[grievingexistence]

You can reinstall XP as an upgrade which as far as I know reinstalls your OS and doesnt touch your data already on the drive.. Surely you would set things up with your OS on one partition and keep your data on another, right?

[el_novato]

Not necessarily. You can create multiple partitions on the HDD and delete and reformat each one individually. As grievingexistence suggested, it is recommended that you create seperate partitions for the OS and your data. That way, should you need to reinstall or reformat, you can do so without losing your personal data, provided you only alter the partition the OS is on.

HTH

e.n. :)

[edfair]

Your friend probably did install 95 on a drive that had stuff on it. As long as it saw hard drive media it was comfortable with it would install, provided that it didn't see a previous wndows install. And you could hide the previous stuff and force it right on.
Same goes for 98.