I'd like to format my harddisk but then I misplaced all my drivers! My question is, are the drivers of the motherboard, cd rom, video card etc also erased when you format your hard disk? thanks.

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Technically everything is erased from your hard drive when you format it so yes, they are erased. However your computer provides basic support for things like video, disk drive access, keyboard, mouse, and other devices. Once you reinstall Windows, Linux, or OS X that operating system will reload your device drivers. Your computer is still useable if you format your hard drive. Hope this helps. Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions.

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Formatting a hard drive is like a sand castle being washed away by rising tide. In a way, it resets the ground floor for new building structures.

If you are planning to format your hard drive and reinstall everything, I would recommend at least having the network driver at hand. This is, of course, provided that you have a broadband connection. As ghostrider mentioned once you install your operating system the basic features will be given to you: video, mouse, keyboard and generic CD-ROM function. And when you install the network driver you can fully use the internet to update or download any specific required drivers for your hardware.

You can also prepare drivers before the format. Download all manufactures' updated drivers and burning to a CD would do just as well.

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If you need something to access the internet, download Knoppix 5.1. Its Linux, its easy to use, and you can access the internet from it. I'm using it right now. Just Google Knoppix and download it and burn the image to a CD.

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After you reformat your harddrive and reinstall your operating system you will have basic drivers, but not all the drivers you need, I suggest before you reformat to download the drivers you will need (i.e. network card, wireless card) so you can install them after you reformat. I can tell you from experience it is a major pain if you don't have your drivers after a reformat. Hope this helps

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everything is erased when you reformat a pc.I suggest to put what you can and what you need on a cd before doing it because it can be a huge pain in the *bottom* to search on the net yet again to find all the stuff you had.

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All the drivers are erased but when you install the OS then they will install default drivers that will allow you to access the internet and such to get the new ones. Secondly, motherboards, cdrom drivers, hard drives, monitors, etc do have drivers but you never will have to install them because they are actually built into the device. The only thing you could do is flash their firmware which isnt recommended unless you are having a problem.

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