wipe HDD and start again

I would like to completely wipe my HDD and start again from scratch, installing windows 2000, which I have the disk for. How do I go about this?

From a search here it seems I could use Active KillDisk to wipe the HDD – but then what? How can a computer start up with nothing on it’s HDD – i.e. how will it recognize the monitor, mouse, and keyboard for example? Can I just put the windows 2000 disc in and follow instructions?

Will I need to change something to boot from CD (currently it’s set to boot from floppy)?

When I install windows should I choose FAT32 or NTFS and what’s the difference?

Please excuse my ignorance !

 

Use your killdisk or dban and wipe the drive (if you want to go all the way)
BIOS has the hardware recognition part as far as basic hardware.. so it will detect the keyboard. etc. You will need to set BIOS to boot from CD, or go get a couple of floppies to boot from. Once the CD launches it will detect other hardware and begin an install. FAT32 has some size limits as far as files go and going to NTFS usually does away with scandisk running at boot (the annoying FAT32 discovered press any key to skip..).. there are plenty of differences but I'll just stay generic.

 

As long as the BIOS is set to boot to the CD, you're OK. Just boot to your Win2000 CD, and select the new install option, and format the drive NTFS during the Win2000 install. You don't need to use a seperate HD wiping program unless you want the drive really, really clean, to where nothing could be resurrected, even by data forensic specialists. Formatting the HD during your Win2000 install should be fine, saving some time.

hopperdave2000

 

Many thanks for the replies.

A few more questions:

Presumably I should disconnect additional hardware such as the 2nd dvd burner and the 2nd graphics card that I have before installing windows?

The hard disk is only 20GB - does this have any bearing on whether or not ntfs is preferable over fat32?

Also, once I have windows all set up to my liking , is there a way of storing all settings, inc. registry settings, so I can revert to it later if I need to?

 

I see no reason to disconnect any hardware whilst installing Windows. And hard drive size and the file system used (NTFS or FAT32) have no effect on each other. NTFS is the preffered way to go: you can read FAT systems with NTFS, but you cannot read NTFS systems with FAT; so use NTFS for max compatability and readability (is readability even a word? )

hopperdave2000

 

thanks ..any ideas on the last question? It would be nice to restore settings rather than re-install all over again