Advice on erasing hard drive.

KxMx

Would really appreciate some advice!
Next Sunday i'm recieving a Windows XP PC to replace my old PC which is Windows 95 (yes Windows 95).
I'm planning to either have Computer Aid collect my PC, or a friend of a friend re-fits computer equipment and sends it to Africa.
Even though I trust both sources i'd feel much better if I could wipe the hard drive first (after saving some files externally) and i'm short on time.
Had a good Google and found this http://www.heidi.ie/node/6 which seems an option.
As it's a major job I didn't want to do it without some advice first!

aliEnRIK

When your new pc comes ~ will it have the xp installation disc with it?
If so, just pop that in, format the drive and reinstall basic xp and leave at that

KxMx

Am not sure honestly! But it's the Windows 95 PC that i'm getting rid of so don't think that would work.

aliEnRIK

KxMx wrote: »

Am not sure honestly! But it's the Windows 95 PC that i'm getting rid of so don't think that would work.

It would
You can install xp on just about anything (unless its a TINY hard drive)
but that doesnt matter anyways as ~ it WILL completely format it either way

totalsolutions

Easy one DBAN

No way will xp go on it, alienRIK

SPANIEL36

aliEnRIK wrote: »

It would
You can install xp on just about anything (unless its a TINY hard drive)
but that doesnt matter anyways as ~ it WILL completely format it either way

can i ask why it wouldn't work on a TINY hard drive as i need to format mine pretty soon and its a TINY one!!!

aliEnRIK

SPANIEL36 wrote: »

can i ask why it wouldn't work on a TINY hard drive as i need to format mine pretty soon and its a TINY one!!!

Exact specifics im unsure of. But you could probably just about fit XP on a 3gig hard drive. But then thats WITHOUT any other software. As a minimum to RUN......id say 5 gig as an ABSOLUTE min

SJames_3

Feel free to correct me if I'm completely wrong, but KxMx, I take it you're just concerned with securely formatting the HDD, making any data unrecoverable? And not with having an OS on it before it gets shipped off? I would image these kinds of organisations stick Linux on their donated PCs, rather than leaving all manner if Windows and other OSs on them.

As totalsolutions said, DBAN, Eraser, or any similar utility should do roughly the same job. Personally, I use KillDisk before selling any HDDs on eBay, but I think the free version only does a one-pass format, which is probably good enough for your purposes, but maybe not as thorough as some freeware or open source equivalents.

PS. I used to have a Win95 PC with a 500MB HDD. Happy days. :rolleyes:

aaron772

Deban is fine nothing is totally secure they can even get the info off smashed drives though i wouldnt worry too much unless you have lots of company data on it.


____________________________
Dont be too quick to judge

mrscruffy

If you are that concerned then just take out the drive before you give it away.

MX5huggy

RxMx is your computer up to the specs computer aid want?

http://www.computeraid.org/donationspecs.htm

If you are not going to take the disk out and hit it with a sledge hammer I would just open a DOS prompt and do a format.

format c:
This would erase all the contents of your C: hard disk drive. In other words, unless you wish to erase all your computer's information, this command should not be done unless you're planning to start over.