Wiping the hard drive?

muffler

I want to wipe the hard drive of a Acer 7000 laptop (Vista O.S.) and I have googled this and have seen umpteen different ways o doing it. So much so that I now regret looking at all the details.

The problem is that i dont know too much about the technical aspects of all this so Id be grateful if someone could explain how to do this (in simple terms) or even provide a link to something that a novice like me could understand.

Thanks in advance.

Alanstrainor

What exactly are you trying to do?

Are you selling it on and want to wipe it before selling?

If so I would just reinstall the OS. You could use http://www.dban.org/ which will completely wipe your drive of everything. It's probably way over kill, and i'd expect it to take hours to complete, if not a full day or two depending on how thorough you wanted to be.

Tbh, i'd just pop the vista disk in and reinstall the OS.

cookie1977

+1 for dban if thats what you're trying to do

darraghking22

1. back up what ya need to keep

2.get a windows install disc

3.restart pc/laptop with disc in the drive

4.boot from the disc (choose boot options when starting up, usually by pressing f12)

5.follow on screen instructions

6.when discs are listed, depending on operating system you will get different options
xp-
press d to delete the hard drive contents, and press the requested keys to confirm.
then choose format, and choose NTFS quick format.


windows 7- choose drive options and then choose delete, when deleted choose next and it will reinstall windows for you.

when it is completely installed...(it will restart a couple of times but leave disc in the drive).....go to my start and right click my computer, and choose manage.

these guides might help you

windows 7- http://www.techtalkz.com/windows-7/514412-windows-7-installation-guide-tutorial.html

xp- http://tweakhound.com/xp/installxp/installXP1.htm

PM me if you want any more help on this issue.

muffler

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Are you selling it on and want to wipe it before selling?

Its a laptop belonging to "she who must be obeyed" and apparently the motherboard needs replacing. So she will probably try selling it on for parts if nothing else.

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Tbh, i'd just pop the vista disk in and reinstall the OS.

Looks like the simplest way

darraghking22 wrote: »

2.get a windows install disc

3.restart pc/laptop with disc in the drive

4.boot from the disc (choose boot options when starting up, usually by pressing f12)

5.follow on screen instructions

6.when discs are listed, depending on operating system you will get different options

Its windows Vista but I assume its a similar process involved.

darraghking22 wrote: »

PM me if you want any more help on this issue.

Thank you but you might regret making that offer (hopefully I'll manage it)

Lazarus2.0

Long time no speak , my friend

Pressing Alt+F10 when you power up the laptop should bring you to the recovery environment where you'll have the option of creating a recovery disk or restoring from one you created . It's pretty plain sailing from there ..

muffler

nessyguin wrote: »

Long time no speak , my friend

Pressing Alt+F10 when you power up the laptop should bring you to the recovery environment where you'll have the option of creating a recovery disk or restoring from one you created . It's pretty plain sailing from there ..

Long time indeed Hope you're behaving yourself

Does that process wipe the drive though?

Lazarus2.0

muffler wrote: »

Does that process wipe the drive though?

Not thoroughly .. it formats but not in such a way that you could be sure old files couldnt be recovered . You'd need something like the aforementioned DBAN to be confident of that .

You should use the recovery utility to create a restore disk if you havent already though .

BostonB

Formatting the drive and re-installing the OS does not delete the data. However if you do that, you could then run CCleaner and wipe the free disk space. http://www.piriform.com/docs/ccleaner/using-ccleaner/wiping-free-disk-space.

Though for me the only way to do this properly is boot up a disk with dban. One pass is all you need. Takes a fair amount of time though. Then re-install the OS.

muffler

Thanks for all the replies lads.

A few months ago the laptop stopped working apparently. My son took it to some guy he's friendly with and who knows a bit about these things and he said it would need a new motherboard? He also said it would probably cost almost as much as the laptop was worth. So on hearing this she went off and bought a new one.

A few days ago I reminded my son to get the laptop back from his mate and he did and I plugged it in and switched it on last night and hey presto!... it booted up. First thing I done was to copy the music, documents etc. to a DVD.

Windows Vista gives you a little side bar with different things on it and one of them is like a double gauge or clock. One seems to monitor the memory usage and the other looks as if its reading a temperature..not sure about this. Perhaps some of you will know.

The little gauge on the desktop Im using shows a fairly constant reading of around 40% whereas the laptop was increasing up to the 80% + mark. Im just wondering if I was to use dban referred to above would this put undue stress on the motherboard given the fact that its a long process and maybe the the whole thing just give up in the middle of it all?. The HD is 40Gb btw.

BostonB

Theres only one way to find out.

muffler

BostonB wrote: »

Theres only one way to find out.

True. But that's what I'm afraid of.

If the thing went belly up half way through the "wiping" process then it means that I wouldnt get the disk free from personal data.

I suppose it could always be flogged without a hard drive or a different one if necessary as its mainly for parts if the other guy is right about the mother board.

BostonB

You can stick the hard drive in a USB caddy and wipe it that way. You've really nothing to lose.

muffler

BostonB wrote: »

You can stick the hard drive in a USB caddy and wipe it that way. You've really nothing to lose.

Not sure what you mean or how to do that BostonB.

Computers are something that I know very little about but I'm always learning

bonzodog2

I'd say anyone who'd buy it for parts would be just as likely to do so without a hard disc. They are usually easy to remove, and to fit into an enclosure to make an external disk.

Is she-who-must etc concerned about personal data ?

Consider:
clear recycle bin
delete everything from temp folders
clear browser cache and history
defrag
copy some large files to drive until full, then delete them (this will overwrite the previos contents of any free space)

muffler

bonzodog2 wrote: »

Is she-who-must etc concerned about personal data ?

The only thing that would be of concern would be the credit card details which she used a good few times.