HOW TO WIPE HARD DRIVE CoMPLETELY?

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DaWalrus

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Jul 5, 2015
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Hi everyone. I need some help with this.
Alright, so a while ago I got attacked by horrible spam, a ton of trojans, just an army of viruses. I managed to clear most of them off, but I'm fairly certain there's still some on my PC. Ever since that attack my PC has just been acting funny, being all slow, media player crashing a lot, just an assortment of problems. I decided to just wipe my hard drive completely, absolutely everything.

So basically, if I want to wipe my hard drive completely, of absolutely everything, then reinstall Windows 7 and start fresh, how would I wipe my hard drive?
Thanks!
 
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Shaina11

Shaina11

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Apr 23, 2014
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Try connecting the HDD to another computer, i.e. a desktop, and format it in full. (Not the quick format option.) If you don't have a desktop then acquire a SATA/IDE to USB adapter and connect the HDD to another computer externally.
 
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fudgecakes99

fudgecakes99

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Mar 17, 2014
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Their's no way to "completley" wipe a hard drive. Their will always be residual data left over. But the best option in your case is just reformatting. So you can't actually format the C: drive as the drive has to be dismounted or not be reading or writing data. When you put the windows 7 or whatever o.s. cd drive in it'll give you an option to format choose it format the c drive and re install the o.s.
 
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DaWalrus

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Jul 5, 2015
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Okay, so when I'm ready just put in the install disk, start the process, then it'll have an option to format the hard drive? Will it prompt me or will I have to select it from an option?
 
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DaWalrus

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Jul 5, 2015
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Okay, so that seems like it'll work. I'll go through with it as soon as I get the recovery media, which will be in a few days. Once I successfully do it I'll select the best answer.
By the way, is there any way to select two best answers? You and TechNeeeQ both posted pretty much the same answer at the same time, and I don't want to select one over the other as it wouldn't be fair to the other one. You guys do benefit from best answers, do you not?
 
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fudgecakes99

fudgecakes99

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it doesn't matter it's whoever you believe gave you the best answer. Though techneeeq did post 50 seconds before i did, if that helps. No we don't really "benefit" from best answers. We get fancy badges if we get enough best answers in a specific category thats about it. People just answer to help theirs no real benefit on our end.
 
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guanyu210379

guanyu210379

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Mar 30, 2007
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The best thing you can do to clean a harddrive is by using tools e.g. GParted.
GParted is also bootable so you do not have to connect the drive to other PCs.
From GParted, you can full format the HDD, you can quick format the HDD, rearrange the partitions, write the HDD with 1s or 0s, change to NTFS, FAT32, EXT3, EXT4, etc.
If you do full format including writing the HDD with 1s and 0s several times, I do not thing there will be any noticeable residues.
 
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fudgecakes99

fudgecakes99

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They make a few tools "deletion" tools. It just scrambles the data. Data will always be their, just not readable, but if you're worried any viruses' or trojans will be left i doubt it, after a reformat it's next to impossible you'll have any left over viruses.
 
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DaWalrus

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Jul 5, 2015
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Well, okay. I guess I'll give it to techneeeq then since he did answer first... But thanks for your help as well.
Oh and by the way, love your profile GIF!
 
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