wipe and reload?

Question

What is the best program to use to wipe my hard drive? Can I get any of these online?

Answer 1

I use "Boot Disk Professional" and inside that a program another called "KillDisk" it writes the binary code to all zeros, so harddrive cannot contain data. Then install Windows using the NTFS filing system.
You can down a copy of KillDisk from NTFS.com, it is under the heading of "Active@Boot Disk Professional"
It works great if you suspect a virus, or stuborn spyware.

Answer 2

Why would you want to? It takes time to reload and you have to have the original disks. I made that mistake - I formatted C, then loaded Windows 98.
( However I did not have the Windows Office program) that the shop loaded into my computer so I lost MSword and Excel and other related. $600 and I could buy the program. Nah, don't think so. So anything I had saved that was in that language was now useless to me(resumes, books, graphs,) Oh well.
Why don't you try to eliminate spyware in the computer first using some good and free programs you can download off the net such as Ad-aware, Spybot, Ewido for starters.
Also either reduce the number of applications that start up automatically when you start your computer and remove the temporary files on your C drive(start/all programs/accessories/system tools/disc cleanup.


The way you are doing it is short of reformatting the computer, but not by much. (It definitely wipes the hard drive.)

Answer 3

If you have Microsoft the easiest thing to do is reinstall your operating system software(this comes with your computer when you buy it). When you reinstall your operating system software you get the option to wipe everything on your computer hard drive clean, or you can choose to save some wanted files while getting rid of all the rest.

The software for Microsoft XP and Windows ME/2000 will be a in relatively large case that has your product ID number on the back(be sure you have the product ID because you need that to reinstall your software) If you have the old school Microsoft 95-98, then it'll be in a regular sized, paper CD case.

If you do this be sure to reinstall and not install, because if you install it you'll have another operating system and they'll conflict, take up a huge portion of your hard drive, slow down your operating speed, and just generally cause you problems So be sure and reinstall and not install.

Also, if you have some files, like iTunes music, documents, or anything that you need, be sure to back it up before you reinstall your operating system software.

Answer 4

I gotta ask why you would want to do this? Most people don't understand that this is a long time-consuming process and you wind up losing lots of stuff you didn't realize, like settings. I think there's an epidemic going around - everyone wants to "wipe and reload" like it's playing on MySpace or something.

The only time you need to reformat and reinstall is if you have unrecoverable corruption of the operating system. Then you need the original disks that came with the computer for starters.

Answer 5

if you're going to wipe and reload the OS, you can use the OS cd you're installing from. For example, when installing Windows XP, you're given the option of deleting the partition and re-formatting it. If you're installing any version of Linux, it will do the same.

Mel

Answer 6

well u can used your os cd if u got one like xp and format hard drive then reload operation system or u can used a windows 98 floppy startup disk format hd then reload os.. if u dont have a win98 startup floppy u can get it at www.bootdisks.com good luck but used the cd it easy to do..as for micosolf it only for updates...

Answer 7

Use your original Windows CD. When the install starts up, answer Yes that you want to format the drive.

Answer 8

department of defense wipe will wipe your hd 7 times with zeros. even people that work in data recovery cant recover it after running the program.

http://www.google.com/search?&q=department%2Bof%2Bdefense%2Bwipe

Answer 9

go on www.microsoft.com