Cleaning a hard drive

[bucaneer]

Can anyone tell me how to completely clean out a hard drive. I have windows xp, on my desktop computer. Thanks in advance.

 

[Sci Fi Guy]

You mean like reformat?

 

[bucaneer]

Yeah reformatting is fine, but I heard there are better ways of doing it.

 

[harold]

you need something called ghost. or thats what i think its called. reformating it does not work that well. the feds have ways of recovering data from reformated disks. ghost is your best bet.

 

[QBall1970]

Hard Drive Utilities / Remedies

Can anyone tell me how to completely clean out a hard drive. I have windows xp, on my desktop computer. Thanks in advance.

bucaneer - Are you wanting to completely re-format the hard drive... or just wipe out various folders?

If you're wanting to re-format, go to this link:

How to wipe an NTFS-formatted hard drive with Windows XP

** If you choose this option, kep in mind you're going to need to re-partion the hard drive, re-install Windows XP, and re-install of your software, documents, etc. This option COMPLETELY erases everything on your drive... you're starting with a clean slate.

If you're just wanting to clean up and reclaim hard drive space, go to this link:

Step-By-Step: Reclaim Hard-Drive Space

Also, here's another useful link that most people seem to really never think about doing until it's too late:

How to DeFragment Your Hard Drive...


Hope these three links help, buccaneer. Let me know if you need any more assistance. Whichever the case it may, I highly recommend that you print the above information in those links. Make a reference guide for yourself.

:thumbsup:

 

[QBall1970]

More Utilities...

In keeping with harold's suggestion, here's a link to another hard drive cleaner called "KILL DISK"...

Click HERE to go to the Site.

Here's another utility for hard drives AND the Internet...

System & Internet Washer - Your Ultimate Privacy Solution

 

[bucaneer]

Thanks alot one of my roomates has a relatively new computer and somehow downloaded all kinds of spyware, and about 5 viruses. After messing w/ it several hours I figured this would be a easier solution. Thanks again

 

[QBall1970]

Go to http://www.TUCOWS.com and locate & download a shareware version of a program called "A-SQUARED" MALWARE PREVENTION... I have it on this computer I'm on currently and it works fantastically. Unfortunately, I crashed it about a month ago (same situation as y'all's) and I've YET to have any problems, buccaneer, since I loaded all of these programs on here

I also have "Ad-Aware" and "SpyBot" and "SpyWareBlaster" on here as well.

Good luck!

 

[TwinDragon]

QBall what Virus program do you use on your pc?

 

[MightyKrendall]

Thanks alot one of my roomates has a relatively new computer and somehow downloaded all kinds of spyware, and about 5 viruses. After messing w/ it several hours I figured this would be a easier solution. Thanks again

Get Norton, Spybot, Adaware, and HijackThis!. That should clean it up nicely.

Otherwise, just turn on his computer with the WindowsXP CD in the drive. When it says "Press any key to boot from disk" do so. You should eventually get to a spot where you can delete any or all your partitions. Delete them all. Then format the drive (should be an option) and create a new partition. Set up WinXP like normal from there.

 

[QBall1970]

QBall what Virus program do you use on your pc?

Norton Anti-Virus 2005, T.D. Best damned investment I've made!

Get Norton, Spybot, Adaware, and HijackThis!. That should clean it up nicely.

Damn, MK! We have the same programs!!! GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE!!!

 

[MightyKrendall]

I use Norton 2003, but that's cause I have an OEM copy so it's free every year. Working six months in a computer-building store can definately get you some good shit.

 

[member2686]

A key component to all of this is not just to reformat the drive, but to WIPE it. Norton SystemWorks has a great "wipe" feature. After reformatting and reloading your drive, make certain to run Norton Wipe on it to destroy and scramble up old data. You can also use wipe periodically when things are going well. People think that, by trashing documents, they're deleted. They're not. They are just told by the operating system that they are available to be overwritten when the space is needed.

Qball made excellent suggestions. Nice work, man.

I hope everything works out!!!

 

[MightyKrendall]

If you truly reformat, it's wiped. A reformat removes EVERYTHING on that drive.