Wiping a computer
 

I'm good with more of the everyday-novice things with computers, killing spyware and viruses, fixing windows problems, installing cards and other stuff, but I haven't formatted a computer yet. The family computer here hasn't been touched by me in about 2 years, and the 1.6GHz system is so bogged down with crap it makes my 650 PIII look like a speedster.

So yeah, I guess I need a mini-guide to formatting a computer, partitioning a hard drive (I'd like to install Linux on there, but thats for another thread), and re-installing Windows. What programs should I use? And what is "fdisk" ? Thanks TFP :)

what flavour of windows?

(xp for example will allow you to delete and then format a partition in it's installation process, so you don't need to worry about running 'fdisk' or so)

You could give DBan a try. It is a bootable cd/floppy that will securely wipe the hard drive.

The majority of times when re-installing windows it is just a matter of putting the install cd into the cd drive and booting off it, it will then walk you though everything you need to do

If you're reinstalling Windows XP, this will be easy. If you're not, it's a bit more complicated (because you have to use FDISK like Sin said). I hear some newer Windows 2K CDs are bootable like the XP CDs but I've never tried it myself. Which version of Windows are you installing, and do you have the Windows XP FULL edition CD (not the upgrade version)?

-Lasereth

Correct. Any Windows2000 Cd with SP1 is bootable. That means any install CD after 2001 will work fine.
Upgrade CD for XP will also boot. It will simply run like a normal install CD, except that at install time after partitioning, it will ask you to insert the previous windows CD to make sure your the legit owner.
All Oem CD's will boot a machine, starting with Win2000 no service pack.

The compy currently has XP Home, dunno if it's running any of the service packs or not. I'm looking to upgrade to XP Pro, and I have the full version CD, along with a separate upgrade cd for SP2.

Pop in the Xp Pro Cd, restart the computer, and at the start-up screen hit the key to enter Bios. Find the boot order in Bios and change it to CD being the first. Restart the computer and let the computer boot off the XP Cd. It will go to the setup screen. Follow the instructions, and when asked, indicate that you want to partition the drive.

Well alright then, thank you :)

Start-to-finish, about how long should partitioning and installation take? Tomorrow is a rarity, a weekday and I have no class, so if it doesn't take more than a few hours I may try to defeat it then.

Shouldn't take too long to do. DBAN is a good alternative if the Windows CD for some reason fails to work or you just wanna keep the Department of Defense from seeing what was on there. However, DBAN can take a LONG time to run depending on the size of the drive and method you use to nuke the info on the hard drive. My current record is 2.5 days on a 250 gig 7200 RPM HD on the 7 pass DoD erasing setting.

Are you trying to hide something, Mr. Naughty? ;)

The actual formatting and installation of Windows won't take more than 2 hours total. What WILL take a long time is installing all of your old programs and the Windows updates, but you can do that step by step when you have the time. If you have any questions, just ask...many of us here have did this waaay too many times.

-Lasereth