Need Help Clearing Hard drive...

Ok, im wanting to get rid of my computer and get a new one soon. Im going to be giving my family my old one and im wanting to wipe everything out, basically take it back to brand new factory settings and reinstall xp. Now, from what i hear, formatting the disk will not accomplish this, but rather i have to do a disk wipe? Im not exactly familiar with this. So basically, how would i go about completely erasing EVERYTHING off the drive and starting brand new? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Well, it depends on where you bought your computer. If it was a HP or Compaq or something like that, you would go and use the recovery partition.

Otherwise, try this.
http://dban.sourceforge.net/

I've never used this before, since I usually just reformat and install XP, but if you're giving it to your family, I don't think there's any difference between a full wipe and just a quick format.

If you're really looking to wipe, the link above seems to be ok. Plus, Sourceforge is a reputable website so you don't have to worry about stuff.

Here's another one, directly on SourceForge as opposed to just being hosted on it
http://sourceforge.net/projects/disc-wipe/

 

Who says that reformating wil not do the job?When you install new Xpthe first thing you do when you go to partition section is to delete the partition were the OS(this is C.to do that press D,then Enter,then L.Now you don't have partition C:.To create new one press C,followed by enter(in the next screen don't change the size),enter again,and that's it.The formating will start emediately.

 

As Goran.P says above, booting to your XP installation CD and using the format option before installing Windows will work fine. A full, low level disk wipe is only necessary if you're worried about someone snooping thru the sectors and rebuilding any data leftover after the drive is formatted. Since the PC is staying in the family, you shouldn't be too worried about someone going to lengths required to resurrect data from the formatted drive....

Have a GREAT New Year! :foolish

 

awesome, thanks for the help guys =D