And yet another computer question..

[La Huesera]

How does one wipe out a computer..taking it back to Windows alone? I want all of my info off of it.

 

[modest mouse]

Reformat your harddrive. Then reinstall Windows and other core components.

 

[theblackthought]

reformating

BEFORE you reformat your computer, make sure you have all of the ORIGINAL disks that came with it- otherwise, you may severely cripple yourself in bringing it back. Is there something specific you are trying to remove? Or are you simply wanting to erase EVERYTHING on the hard drive. The reason I ask is there are other ways of removing specific things from your PC permenantly.

BTW, I am not talking out of my ass on this- this is what I do for a living.

 

[La Huesera]

ok.. great.. but how do I reformat I know, but I don't know shit about computers. I don't really care if Windows is back on it, I think the old computer will be parted out. I just don't want anyone getting any info.

 

[theblackthought]

how to reformat

ok.. great.. but how do I reformat I know, but I don't know shit about computers. I don't really care if Windows is back on it, I think the old computer will be parted out. I just don't want anyone getting any info.

2 things- what OS[operating system] do you have, and how old is your PC?


it may have the option to reformat pop up on the screen when you start the pc- if only for a brief moment...

 

[theblackthought]

if the option doesn't appear on start up...

you should have a system restore disk- or some other disk that came with the PC- containing the OS- when you put that disk in the computer and restart the PC- it should display a message asking if you want to reformat the PC...

 

[La Huesera]

Re: how to reformat

2 things- what OS[operating system] do you have, and how old is your PC?


it may have the option to reformat pop up on the screen when you start the pc- if only for a brief moment...

The OS is ME, and I am not sure how old the computer is..but it is old. (this is my aunts computer, and she just bought a new one.)

 

[The Heretic]

A word of caution; if what you are trying to do is prevent someone who is knowledgeable from gathering evidence/history of what you had on your hard drive or where you have been on the internet, formatting the hard drive may not be enough. Someone with disk recovery or forensic software may still be able to recover substantial information from the hard drive. If this is the case then you need to get some security software which will overwrite any "erased" data on your drive so that it cannot be recovered. If I were selling/trading in a computer or giving it back to an employer, then I would wipe the drive.

If on the other hand, you are just giving the computer to a relative and they aren't going to be doing that kind of search or recovery, then a reformat would probably be fine.

 

[Shaft]

Sledgehammer.
Works like a charm....

 

[Weird Harold]

Someone with disk recovery or forensic software may still be able to recover substantial information from the hard drive.

That all depends on what level of formatting you choose. Windows default "quick format" just rebuilds the FAT, but an "Unconditional Format" (format /u) writes a value to every byte on the disk and reads it back to test the disk's inegrity. It would take near miraculous forensic software to recover data from and unconditional format.

LH, To reformat the disk, create a startup disk and reboot from it.

at the A:\ prompt type fdisk /mbr

At the A:\ prompt type Format C:\ /U /S

If the computer has more than one hard-drive or is partitioned, repeat the format command for each additional drive without the /S argument.

Once you've finished, remove the startup disk and reboot -- the computer should boot to a blank disk with only command.com on it.

 

[The Heretic]

That all depends on what level of formatting you choose. Windows default "quick format" just rebuilds the FAT, but an "Unconditional Format" (format /u) writes a value to every byte on the disk and reads it back to test the disk's inegrity. It would take near miraculous forensic software to recover data from and unconditional format.

LH, To reformat the disk, create a startup disk and reboot from it.

at the A:\ prompt type fdisk /mbr

At the A:\ prompt type Format C:\ /U /S

If the computer has more than one hard-drive or is partitioned, repeat the format command for each additional drive without the /S argument.

Once you've finished, remove the startup disk and reboot -- the computer should boot to a blank disk with only command.com on it.

As usual, good advice from WH. I haven't formatted a hard drive in over 5 years as I rarely need to (*shrug*). I do suggest one caution though; some older computer will not boot properly from a CD ROM, so before you do anything create at least one floppy that is a recovery disk. When Lost Cause had problems with his computer a while back the fact that he had created one of these disks saved his butt (his computer is quite old tech). I even had problems with my mom's laptop which is fairly new, but had an external CD ROM drive; it just didn't want to boot from the CD-ROM.

 

[Guest]

 

[Weird Harold]

so before you do anything create at least one floppy that is a recovery disk.

Which is why I started with "Create a startup disk" which includes an option for CD-Rom Support in it's boot menu.

 

[The Heretic]

Which is why I started with "Create a startup disk" which includes an option for CD-Rom Support in it's boot menu.

You actually expected me to read all of your post thorougly? Me?

Sorry, as usual I skipped over stuff and made a redundant suggestion - in this case though I think redundancy is a good thing.

 

[LukkyKnight]

You actually expected me to read all of your post thorougly? Me?

Sorry, as usual I skipped over stuff and made a redundant suggestion - in this case though I think redundancy is a good thing.

WH has LOTS of answers, TH.

 

[~Dream~]

computer probs?

 

[La Huesera]

Thanks everyone