I will be selling one of my computers and was wondering how I go about reformatting/erasing the hard drive... Do I just put in a wondows disc before booting and go from there?
You can either do a clean install on top of the drive and do a format before hand, or just add the drive to another PC and format it from there. If you have any extremely sensitive information on there, and are concerned about it being retrieved, then you will need to use a good scrubbing program on the drive such as EraserDisk which will erase all info to a level where no normal users could ever get your info back off of it. This is worth thinking about if you have stored personal info such as bank details or card info, and you are not sure who is using it afterwards.
Thanks for the info. It's actually an older laptop that is probably going to go on ebay. There really isn't anything critical on there but I guess for a piece of mind. Do you know of any free datascrubbers or perhaps I can get something on a P2P?? Have a great rest of the week!
do an fdisk & format a few times & if know the make of your hd than download from hd site a low level formatter.
DDP gave you the easiest and the best way to mess up that disk so the average people would not be able to read what is on it ! If you have Webroot Windows Washer -- dont forget there is a utility in there under WASH UTILITIES -- called Hard Disk eraser. It writes 5 or 6 passes of one's and zero's over the entire disk !
Ok, now I bought Drive Scrubber 2, and did the ole 7 passes wipe out thing. How in the... er well, how do I get an o/s back on to it to boot up the computer? The software never mentions anything about putting your o/s BACK on to it after it gets totally wiped.
You bought a drive scrubber when I posted a free one?? And you wiped out the drive having not a fusking clue how to reinstall a os? God Help you... Obviously you need the restore or windows os disk for the computer. And the key for the os. Hopefully you save the cd key of of windows with magical jelly bean or equivalent. If not yeah done and going to have to look at a warez site for a downloadable copy of windows or go buy a copy.....
ok, make me feel bad, but I didn't think of looking here to see if there was a freebee out there. But, I have XP Pro & key, but I can't seem to get the bloody thing to set up. I keep getting invalid disk in drive or some crap like that. Then it would tell me I'm an idiot for trying to put a non-system disk in when in fact it is the original damned thing I used the first time I installed the bloody drive. So, now what do I do? My next option is to grab the POS 20G HDD out of my 450Mhz 'puter (after I brush off the layers of dust) and see if that one will boot up and then change it over to XP from Me. Other than that, any other suggestions? At least I still have options yet.
Dude, Lets just start at the begining, turn computer on, open CD tray, place XP disc in tray (drive), close CD tray, TURN OFF COMPUTER, TURN COMPUTER BACK ON, the CD should spin up and XP should start to install, it will load a heap of files and take you to a ("nice" not "bad") blue screen, follow prompts to install a new copy of XP and you will need to create a partition or two and ensure you install to the first partition. Hope this assists you. M
The key to this is... use a new install disk, not the upgrade version. The later just lets you look like a tard! LOL
you said it!! also should do a R.T.F.M.D.(Read The F***ing Manual Dummy) 1st before playing with software & hardware.
If all else fails, take a hammer and beat the heck out of it. Naturally, you will not be selling the drive then, but at least you know that all of your sensitive infomation will not fall in the wrong hands.
