Best way to wipe Hard Drive?

[alltheicons]

So I have an old hard drive with windows xp and personal files on it. I want to wipe it clean and put windows 7 on it and us it as a secondary computer. What is the best way of doing this? Also I was told once something is put on a hard drive it can never be erased, is that true? If it is what would you suggest for just removing the data and restoring windows so i can have it run clean and fast as possible.

 

[HEXiT]

depending on the make and model you may be able to get a low level format for it. this will return the drive to a completely raw state. if not then use somthing ccleaner that will enable you to wipe the drive multiple times... or look here http://www.dban.org/

 

[mcnumpty23]

if you are keeping possession of the drive just format it during the windows 7 set up--much quicker--securely deleting it takes a long time if you do it to above dod standard--if you ever give it away or ebay it etc use the program hexit said and do 7-10 overwrites--can take all night long depending how big the drive is

 

[alltheicons]

my hardrive came stock with my hp a1640n it is 250 GB SATA 3G (3.0 Gb/sec)
7200 rpm

 

[popatim]

since you are reusing for yourself, just format the drive during windows 7 installation as already suggested. The install will detect all the drives and partitions available so select this drive and click the "Format" button.

If you have more than 1 partition on the drive I suggest deleting them until you just have 1 large "unallocated" space and then create a new partition followed by a format, do a full format instead of a quick when prompted to select one.

 

[gamerk316]

Easiest way is to just use the win7 installer to handle it. Good enough if you plan to re-use it in another PC.

 

[alltheicons]

Best answer selected by Alltheicons.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey