how can i erase my hard drive and start over?

Question

i have an older Dell, and the hard drive is filled with useless junk.I am unable to delete a lot of it for various reasons, and I just want to start over. also, it musta come with windows ME, but xp is installed. I have all the original cd's that came with the computer to reinstall drivers and the windows ME. Do i just reformat the hard drive, and restart with the operating system disk in the cd drive? and will i have to put the original video card back in, instead of the Nvidia that i installed last year? whatever you know about it will help

i need to go back to ME, the computer cant handle XP. thats part of the reason i was given it for free. the person who had it before must not have installed xp correctly, because alot of stuff is on the hard drive but not in the programs dialog or in the program files folder. it looks like they just took a XP reinstall disc for a different computer and put in on without knowing what they were doing. i need everything off the drive

Answer 1

Hey There,

Okay, I need a project.

This is a simple process, with many complicated steps.

First, make sure you have some sort of reinstall CD or OS cd to begin again. If you do, this will be easy.

Put it in the cd rom and boot to it. You will go through the install process. Make sure that you are going through the install and NOT thre reinstall.

You will get to a partition screen. Make sure you DELETE EVERY partition that you see. Press "D". You will know that you did it correctly if it asks you to press "L" to delete. It might gripe to you that it is a system partition. YES delete it.

Then, select the unpartitioned space to install the OS. Format it NTFS. It might take several minutes to several hours to do this.

You are on your way. After the format, it should take about an hour to complete the install process.

Depending on your computer, you may have to install different device drivers and do windows updates. Depending on your experience, this may take you a day or so.

Here are a few web sites that will help you with your original problems. Install this stuff before you get in trouble again.

Here are a few more links
If the pop ups appear when you're online, activate your browsers pop up blocker. Go to tools - internet options - block pop ups.
But if they appear on your pc when you're not connected to the net then you have either spyware or adware on your pc. Run Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware SE Personal to get rid of them.
http://www.grisoft.com – AVG antivirus
http://www.avast.com – Avast antivirus
http://www.lavasoft.com - Ad-Aware SE Personal anti adware
http://www.safer-networking.org - Spybot Search and Destroy anti spyware. Use the Teatimer settings to protect Internet Explorer, and the Immuniser to stop malware getting on your pc.
Also use Microsoft Defender and their online scans.

And these are useful utilities:
http://www.microsoft.com/defender
http://housecall.trendmicro.com
http://www.mozilla.com - Firefox web browser.
http://www.ccleaner.com Cr*pcleaner Registry cleaner and privacy tool
Winpatrol is a handy utility that manages cookies on your pc and stops unwanted changes to your startup folder.
http://www.winpatrol.com
Spywareblaster works with Internet Explorer and Firefox. It won't uninstall spyware that is already on your pc, but it will prevent hijacks and other malicious changes to your browser.
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com
http://www.siteadvisor.com -McAfee Site Advisor warns about malware on sites you are about to visit.

Tom

Answer 2

well, Ive completely forgotten how to reformat a hard drive.............its been a while.Lol, now days you just go to recovery and start your computer back to the way it was when you bought it.lol But, that's not quite wiping the slate clean.
But, what i can tell you is that you should not have to use the original video card as long as you have the software for the one you installed last year.

I'm thinking you have to do it with the disk in the cd drive.Because once you remove your windows...all you will have is a huge paper weight.But, don't go by me, lol.

Answer 3

BE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM DISK. You also might want to back-up any files or programs you want to keep onto a disk. Then go to My Computer right click on the hard drive icon and click format. Do not turn off your computer until the formating is complete then put your operating disk into the disk tray and your finished. If you dont want to do that then Disk cleanup Add/Remove programs or Defender Pro tool box will help out alot.

Answer 4

You have to have a start up disk at a prompt type in fdisk choose options 3 y enter choose option 1 press y ctrl,alt,del reboot to floppy again then do format c:

Answer 5

just reinstall the operating system of your choice,boot from the CD,,reformatting the drive will erase all the info, recomend ntfs file system

Answer 6

How about system recovery? That should erase everything without going back down to ME. You could also do system restore to erase all the apps and erase unneeded files manually if you want...