formatting help

I just got this computer from a friend who gave it to me, he recently moved from Alaska to Washington so he lost all his software for it and for some reason all the usual methods of formatting be it windows disc, command prompt, setup mode before startup--I can't reformat it. It's an Acer Aspire Media series desktop (that's all I know) and it's driving me insane. T_T Can anyone out there help me out?

Also, I'm not sure if this matters or not but it is partitioned. One operating system is XP home addition, the other is Windows Media Edition (or something) I would like to get rid of the media addition and wipe the home edition free from all the old files so just have one operating system in the end.. (if that makes any sense @_@)

Thanks in advance.

 

To delete the Media Edition. Start the computer in XP home and...

Start>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management in the left pane Disk Management

On the graph right-click the Media Edition partition and select Format

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I'm not sure if you want to format the whole HD and make one partition or just cleanup the XP Home. Do you have a Windows disc and a product key for a fresh install? Or are you just looking to remove his old files?

 

i tried that just now but it the format option is greyed out when I right click it. So basically I'm just at the point to how I can I completely wipe the computer as if it was built from scratch with nothing on it, how can I wipe it? It doesn't let me format it otherwise.

 

There may be a simpler partitioning utility on MajorGeeks.com but I would get the utility disk from the HD manufacturer's website. I know Western Digital has two; one for preparing the disk for OS install[the one you want] and one for disk diagnostics. I'm not sure if Maxtor/Seagate has two separate utilities or if it is just one.

Right-click My Computer>Hardware Tab>Device Manager>Disk Drives will show you the brand of HD you have.

 

To complete wipe everything from the drive (all the data and all the partitions will be totally gone), use a bootable tool if you're not having any luck booting to the Windows install CD. Most of the hard drive manufacturers have them as free downloads on their web sites. Alternatively you can use Darik's Boot-N-Nuke. The name says it all. Download it here http://www.majorgeeks.com/Dariks_Boot_and_Nuke_d4596.html The download includes an .ISO image file which you'll burn to CD using your favorite burning app that can handle ISO images. Most of 'em can. DO NOT burn it as data or it won't work! Burn it as an image, boot to it, and follow the steps on screen to wipe the drive. Keep in mind that the hard drive will be 100% blank when you're done. You will need a Windows CD and product key to reload your operating system. Here's a link to a step-by-step with screen shots detailing how to do a clean install of Windows XP: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sg_clean.asp In step 5 "Choose an installation partition" they left out the option to press 'D' to delete any partitions listed. Highlight the last one in the list (if more than one is listed) and press D and follow the on screen prompts. When that's done, there will be a different partition listed last (if more than 2 original partitions were originally created). Press D again to delete it. Continue until you have only one listing, then follow the steps to format and install Windows on the single partition.

:major
[dlb]