Need help to do a total wipe of HD w/ Vista, install win 7

DebShane

Commendable
Jul 17, 2016
2
0
1,510
Please help me. I want to wipe clean my hard drive on my hp laptop and install win 7, it has vista now. One of the things I was told to use is Ccleaner, it can do a multi pass from 1-35 times.
If I do a full wipe, can I install OS with a bootable USB (I have it on USB)? And could I still get into the bios after the hard drive is wiped set to boot from USB and install win 7?
What about the drivers, do those go on there, or do you have to go to hp to download for the model I have? Also, if I delete all the partitions, is that bad? Or should I use GParted to make more and why would that be good? I can also just erase the C drive, there's a restore D drive, but its got Vista, which I want to get rid of. Sorry for all the questions. Please help me figure this out, thank you so much in advance :0)
 
Solution
Wiping the hard drive won't change how you can access the BIOS.

Deleting partitions is not bad or good, it depends on why you are doing what you are doing and what you want the end result to be.

If you want to do a clean setup of Windows 7, you don't need to wipe the drive with any utility, start the Windows 7 setup using the USB, during the setup, go to advanced drive options, delete any partitions you see there, delete them, create a new one, continue with the Windows setup.

For the drivers, you need to download them to a USB drive to install on the system once Windows is installed.

For a "wipe" like you are asking about, that is more to make data unrecoverable, usually done when selling a computer or throwing away a drive.
Wiping the hard drive won't change how you can access the BIOS.

Deleting partitions is not bad or good, it depends on why you are doing what you are doing and what you want the end result to be.

If you want to do a clean setup of Windows 7, you don't need to wipe the drive with any utility, start the Windows 7 setup using the USB, during the setup, go to advanced drive options, delete any partitions you see there, delete them, create a new one, continue with the Windows setup.

For the drivers, you need to download them to a USB drive to install on the system once Windows is installed.

For a "wipe" like you are asking about, that is more to make data unrecoverable, usually done when selling a computer or throwing away a drive.
 
Solution

DebShane

Commendable
Jul 17, 2016
2
0
1,510


Thank you for your nice message, so much... So I did do a Dban wipe and installed win 7. Where do I get the updated drivers I need to put on the usb? From hp or windows updates, which win updates won't download for some reason. My version of win 7 didn't have a key, yet the whole OS operates great. Is there a reason why the win updates won't download? I let it search for updates go all day and it stays at zero no updates, no matter what :0(

Thank you again, so much :0)
 


You should have a key for Windows 7, if not, it's pirated version and may not work properly, we can't help you with that.

The drivers you get from the support site of the computer vendor.