Help with partioning & formatting

I havent format my PC in well over 2 years and I think it's time to do so.

However last time my PC was formatted, my cousin was the one who did all the work. Now I need help on how to make a separate drive to back up all my data which I dont want to be lost and the steps to format my PC.

Also, I'm not sure if I can find all the drivers programs like for my webcam or video card etc... is there a way I can d/l them off the net?

I'm really new to computer stuff so help is appreciated!

 

why are you formatting it? thats really not necessary to do. there are other ways of keeping your computer running well without erasing your hard drive. if youre having problems with malware of some sort, that can be fixed.

 

if you feel the need to do so, here are a couple of websites that you may find helpful.

http://www.ehow.com/how_6026_format-hard-drive.html

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313348

 

Just wondering here....but are you just worried that things might be kinda jumbled on your HDD? If so, do a good cleaning by un-installing old programs you don't use, clean your registery, remove old temp files, cookies, etc., (CCleaner is great for that.) and then defrag your HDD.
CCleaner link:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/CCleaner_Slim_No_Yahoo_Toolbar_English_d4191.html

 

Ccleaner is a quite helpful tool actually.

About additional partition. First of all, how many partitions do you have now? Go to Disk Management and you will see all your drives and their size there. If you have two partitions, you may back up all your data on the non-system partition and then format the system drive and perform a Windows installation.
If you have the only partition, you need a special data backup program in order to resize the system partition and split it into two parts.
But when formatting, you actually lose all your drivers and settings. Maybe you'd better try to perform Repair installation?