Need help with cleaning HDD

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Y

Yusuf Demirel

Honorable
Jul 16, 2013
122
0
10,690
Hey guys, I wanted to use an old harddrive as my main drive in a new build. But the problem is, how do I delete everything including the OS?
Help is appreciated :)
 
Solution
lonewolf7


Do you have a bootable media(DVD/USB) on hand ? If so then insert the media it will give you a message upon restarting the PC "Press any key to boot from CD/DVD" just press any key and follow the onscreen instructions. Now you will have the option to "Upgrade" or Clean Install" of OS, click the second one, now comes the drive partition page, just delete all the partitions and make new ones, Thats all you have deleted everything from the HDD and just installed a new OS. Good luck.

Sort by date Sort by votes
trapper

trapper

Distinguished
Jun 23, 2005
679
0
19,160
You can do this when installing your new OS. Put in the disk and wait for it to ask you where it should be installed. You should be given the option to reformat or partition the drive, this will wipe everything from the drive.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
P

Paperdoc

Polypheme
Ambassador
Oct 19, 2006
11,260
1,022
69,340
As the others said, if you have no reason to worry about the old data, let the Windows Install process start by just Deleting all old Partitions on it. Subsequent operations will get it working just fine.

However, if you really worry that the old HDD might have malware or something, you can Zero-Fill the HDD. (Need a utility for that.) That will over-write EVERYWHERE, leaving it blank like a brand new HDD. THEN you Install Windows.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
P

Paperdoc

Polypheme
Ambassador
Oct 19, 2006
11,260
1,022
69,340
Let me make clear that, when I said "Zero Fill", I meant a utility that writes zeros to EVERY Sector. I did NOT mean a File Wipe utility that writes Zeroes only to those Sectors already involved in every known file. In fact, one Zero Fill utility free from a major HDD maker says that, if you choose its very thorough option (not a quick Zero-Fill), it will write ones everywhere, THEN overwrite again with zeroes. If that is done to even the first Sector (no. 0) of the first track of the first side of the HDD, whatever was there will be erased. There are several freeware utilities that can do this, too.

Now, I realize that this is NOT a military-grade data destructor, so it IS possible for sophisticated tools to recover the original data after such a Zero Fill. But no MBR virus can self-resurrect after being overwritten like that.

I also realize that simply re-writing the MBR (via FIXMBR, for example) will not do the job either because it re-writes only the key portions of the first track that are supposed to contain the boot loader code. It does not actually overwrite ALL of the first track of the HDD.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
lonewolf7

lonewolf7

Splendid
May 6, 2013
5,113
2
24,965


Do you have a bootable media(DVD/USB) on hand ? If so then insert the media it will give you a message upon restarting the PC "Press any key to boot from CD/DVD" just press any key and follow the onscreen instructions. Now you will have the option to "Upgrade" or Clean Install" of OS, click the second one, now comes the drive partition page, just delete all the partitions and make new ones, Thats all you have deleted everything from the HDD and just installed a new OS. Good luck.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
Y

Yusuf Demirel

Honorable
Jul 16, 2013
122
0
10,690


This was very useful :D But I was talking about the 2 other guys above me talking about malware or something. But thank you very much.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
k1114

k1114

Titan
May 2, 2010
14,240
93
75,540
Don't worry about it, it's irrelevant to your needs. Just put in the windows cd and install is all you have to do.

But in case you were wondering, zero filling is just a way to sanitize data so it is unrecoverable. It's really for when you are getting rid of the hdd and don't want anyone to get the data.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
P

Paperdoc

Polypheme
Ambassador
Oct 19, 2006
11,260
1,022
69,340
I agree. The ONLY reason you'd want to do more is if you are sure that you do have a virus or something on the old drive that needs to be cleaned off. If not, don't worry about that at all. Do the easy way, and let the Windows Install tools take care of it for you.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom