Once your computer has booted up to the Personalization Screen (Windows 8 and Windows 10) or “Set Up Windows” screen (Windows Vista), you can create a user account and login to the desktop. Windows ...
Formatting a hard drive along with the install of a new OS is the best option. The vast majority of operating system installations provide a "format" option as part of the installation process.
This process is called a clean install, which is ironic as there's nothing particularly clean about it: Microsoft has enshittified Windows Setup.