Reinstalling Windows in itself does not necessarily imply reformatting, for all that matters you can just delete files in the filesystem and reinstall, but my n

Reinstalling Windows in itself does not necessarily imply reformatting, for all that matters you can just delete files in the filesystem and reinstall, but my note was more about the behaviour of format, up to XP when you ran format on a volume there was no way to 00 it [0], while since Vista it is the default [1]. Unless the /q parameter is used (or the "Quick Format" option is chosen) the format command will 00 the volume. Of course if the task at hand is "reset a computer removing traces of what the old employee did and have a brand new OS" using a "Quick Format" is not particularly smart, I should have written "without reformatting properly". [0] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302686/en-us http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302686/en-us [1] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941961/en-us http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941961/en-us