cleaning out old computer

Steve B · Post by **Steve B** » 27 Jun 2000 7:18 pm

I have a used computer that I would like to sell to a friend, but I am needing to clean out the hard drive first, and I am having trouble. I would to re-formatt the thing, and re-install win 98 ( I do have the CD's for that), but I cant make the floppy boot disk do anything. What should I do? How do I erase everything on the hard drive?

Carl Dvorcek · Post by **Carl Dvorcek** » 28 Jun 2000 8:39 am

To create a new floppy, go to My Computer, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, Create Startup Disk. Insert a blank floppy and windows will create a new "boot" floppy for you. It will contain all necessary programs to format the drive and re-install Windows.

Carl

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 28 Jun 2000 9:17 am

Let me add to what Carl said about the startup diskette. Creating the diskette, the way Carl mentioned, will also provide the necessary drivers for your CD drive. You have to have the CD drivers loaded before you can access the CD Drive in DOS mode.

One other comment, formatting the hard drive will not really delete everything from your drive. All it will really do is set all the flags so all of the drive is available to be written to. If you format a drive, without "security wiping" the drive, someone can get in and "reset" the flags and access data on the hard drive. BTW, this is the same thing that happens when you just delete something on the hard drive - it's still there just the status flag is set that makes that area on the drive avialable for use but the data is still there.

If you want to completely erase an area or the entire drive you need a program designed to do that, such as "BCWipe" which is available from many of the download sources.
Norton Untilites used to have a program to do that - haven't seen the later programs so I don't know if they still include it.

And to go further - which really gets down to the espionage type of thing - there is a NSA standard for "security" erasing a drive so that the data cannot be accessed.

John Gretzinger · Post by **John Gretzinger** » 28 Jun 2000 3:51 pm

Steve and Jack

The latest version of the Norton Utilities still include both WipeInfo as a single utility as well as it being included with the disk optimizer. Both have a government approved overwrite mode that takes a really, really long time to run if you have a very big disk.

jdg

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'63 Gibson Hummingbird
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Jude James Shiels · Post by **Jude James Shiels** » 30 Jun 2000 12:40 pm

you don't need the diskette at all if you have in your bios the option to change the bootup from a,c,scsi to d,c,a, it'll boot up straight from your CD Rom drive, it makes much more sense than making a boot disk.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 30 Jun 2000 3:03 pm

Not all Bios' have the capability or option to boot from a CD drive.

Plus everyone should have an "emergency recovery" floppy boot diskette. It's not in case you will need it, but for when you WILL need it. As a retired Help Desk manager I can tell you it is something that is important to have.