Formatting hard drive?

luckat

I want to format a 10GB hard drive before selling it. But I can't seem to stop it from trotting happily into Windows.

I tried pressing delete when starting up, and resetting the master to the CD-ROM, but that didn't stop it.

What should I be doing?

RE*AC*TOR

When you press delete when starting up, do you go into the bios settings? Did you change the boot order to cd-rom? How do you intend to format the drive? Are you booting from a cd, floppy?

StRiKeR

how many drives have you got altogether? need more detials, you trying to format it in windows or dos? why CD on master? best setup is boot drive on primary master and second drive on slave, cd on secondary ide!

luckat

Basically, I want to wipe this drive.

I have a computer I built a couple of years ago, and I'm giving it to a friend. So I've just put Windows 2K on a nice big fast drive for her, and now I want to take the old drive that was in the computer, format it to remove any junk or private stuff, and sell it for a few quid (the old drive, that is).

My intention was to use the installation of a new Windows 2K onto it to format the drive, leaving it clean but for the Windows 2K installation. But if there's an easier way, that'd be fine.

At the moment, the old drive is the only one in the computer.

Optikus

All you need to is as reactor said and go into the BIOS change CD to Boot first, put in W2K cd, restart. Then go into install and format the drive from there.

RE*AC*TOR

now I can't quite remember (someone will clarify), some motherboards (older ones) don't support bootable cdroms. Anyway assuming that isn't the problem, you need to get into bios, set the boot order to cd-rom first. Put in the cd, restart the computer.
Now if you could put it into another computer (ie one with a hard drive and windows installation), you could boot into that windows installation and format from windows - my computer, right click on the hd.. format. Bob's your uncle. If neither of those work, get a bootable floppy, you could format from that.

luckat

Opt, that's what I did, but for some reason the Win2K already on the disk overrode these instructions.

StRiKeR

then just do like every one says, boot with a CD and format it, its easier just use a win98 to boot into dos, that fdisk it, everything is gone then, but if you really want to format it, just create a new partition after fdisk and reboot then format!

luckat

I have tried to boot from the CD. It won't let me.

StRiKeR

what CD did you use and what did it say?

unklerosco

http://www.killdisk.com/

Download the free version, U can make a bootable floppy that'll wipe ur disk n make it more difficult for the buy to recover ur data. Was reading somewhere that a bunch of students bought a 100 hds off e-bay n they got about 79 credit card numbers off them from data recovery...(was for a project)

luckat

Ah, I think it's doing it. Since it wouldn't start up from the CD-ROM, despite all its promises, I just chose the CD within Windows and told it to do a clean install. It's restarted and seems to be doing its stuff. Anyone want to buy a 10GB drive?

Thanks for the help, lads.

luckat

Striker, since you asked, I'm just using an installation CD for Win2K. I assume that whoever buys the hard drive will do their own thing with it.

RE*AC*TOR

unklerosco wrote:

http://www.killdisk.com/

Download the free version, U can make a bootable floppy that'll wipe ur disk n make it more difficult for the buy to recover ur data. Was reading somewhere that a bunch of students bought a 100 hds off e-bay n they got about 79 credit card numbers off them from data recovery...(was for a project)

There's always dban (http://dban.sourceforge.net/), which is 100% free. can make bootable floppy or cd-rom.
Very true, formatting doesn't make the data inaccessible.

luckat

Well, if anyone's that desperate to know about what I had on the hard drive, they're welcome to go to the trouble to get it! I like my privacy, but I'm not *that* fussed.

Hmm.... credit cards, though... hmmm... no, I don't think I used the computer for buying anything online. Actually I hardly ever used it, I kept sneaking guiltily back to my PowerBook, and the poor thing sat there sobbing dustily in the corner while me and my PowerBook lived the high life together.

Capt'n Midnight

Get a windows 98 boot disk

Fdisk/status to see the current partitions. - If they are visible to DOS then you can simply Format c: /u /s /u means no quick format - overwrite.

in fdisk say yes to large disk support if asked
you could also delete all the partitions inc. non-dos and then create a new one and then format it.