Wiping Out My Computer

[CagedApe]

Does anyone know where I can find a guide on how to clean out my HD so it clears everything out except what it came with?

[grinch]

Well there have been many threads with this same question.
Are you trying to totally reformat your HD?
How HD's do you have?
And what did it come with?

[999]

Go to your hdd's website. They should have a downloadable utility for error checking and doing a low level format to your drive. Running this program usually takes several hours but it will completely write your drive back to zero's.

Or you could just pass a huge magnet over it a few times like I do. ;)

[wizard]

Or you could just pass a huge magnet over it a few times like I do. ;)That's not smart... or is it?

[999]

I dunno? I was kidding. Never actually done it. But I know a guy, who has a friend, whos cousins dentist claims that it simply scrambles the data but does nothing to harm the disks from being re-written to again. So if your willing to believe this dentist, give it a shot.

Seriously I know a guy who says he does this all the time ....... but he's a bit of a nut job. :crazy:

[wizard]

I thought that if you used a magnet, you could actually harm the drive physically. Still, I'm not willing to try that.

[grinch]

Lol,
Putting a magnet up to your HD is just as bad as static and your motherboard ;)

[GW02]

If the drive is under 36GB you can just boot into DOS and type in

format c: /s

That'll leave you with zip except the stuff you'll need to reinstall your OS.

Of course, if you want your OS already on there, usually computers come with some sorta utility or Restoration CD...

[wizard]

Just open up the Command Prompt and type in format c:

[GW02]

Hmm, I thought the /s was something you DON'T want to leave out?

Can't live without those DOS system files, you know...

[999]

Well considering that harddrives contain magnets themselves, I think it would have to be a pretty powerful magnet to do any physical harm? I may be wrong? Im guessing it would probably cause some bad sectors on the disk but probably not destroy it completely. Hmmm.. this might give me something to do after work tomorrow. :)

[GW02]

Well they're fairly sensitive magnets... quite fragile really. You probably wouldn't end up causing any major sort of data loss, only corruption and damage.