Can someone help me wipe a hard drive? I have windows 98 but can only get to it in safe mode. nm

[rhett o rick]

[Betty88]

1. If you have all the software its not that bad

Do a little googling and check out sites like this one

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/win98/install98cd/indexfullpage.htm, found this with a simple "how to install windows 98"

I have not put 98 on a computer in years, from what I remember the drivers were the hardest part. Good luck.

[rhett o rick]

2. Please don't laugh. It's an old computer that I was going to donate to a school lab to play with.

It isn't connected to the internets and the cd drive doesn't work. At the a: prompt when i type in "format:c" it tells me a parameter is missing. I can remove the hard drive and physically destroy it, I am just going thru this exercise for learning purposes.

[Why Syzygy]

3. Try this

http://www.whitecanyon.com/format-c-drive.php

[rhett o rick]

10. Thanks for the suggestion but I only have a floppy drive, no internet conn and no CD drive. nm

[Betty88]

4. that cool, I think I have used killdisk for that

http://www.killdisk.com/

[ProdigalJunkMail]

5. don't know if that was a typo...

but you might want to try 'format c:' instead of what you typed above.

sP

[rhett o rick]

8. It wasn't a type. I will try that correction. nm

[charlie]

7. School lab?

If it's got personal information you don't want out in the wild -- passwords, bank statements, whatever -- you'll want to do more than a format. Not that kids are nascent criminals, but when you're giving access to exponentially more people, you're exponentially increasing the chance someone will trawl the drive for leftover bits just to prove s/he can do it.

It would be better to do a deep cleansing to make information harder to recover. Here's a couple of basic overviews and some recommended software:

http://lifehacker.com/5153684/properly-erase-your-physical-media
http://www.cnet.com.au/how-to-clean-up-your-hard-drive-339296181.htm

[hobbit709]

14. Try format c:

[rhett o rick]

15. That worked. Thanks so much. nm

[jayfish]

6. If The PC Is Old Enough...

it may have a low-level format utility written into it's BIOS. When the PC first boots (right after the POST beep) look for a line that references entering Setup. Press the key indicated on that line to enter Setup. Once there look for an entry for "Disk Utilities" or similar. If found, look for "Low Level Format" or "Write Zeros To HDD, Hard Drive, Disk, etc." Run the utility and exit setup (do not save any changes if prompted).

Jay

[rhett o rick]

9. I think I did that. What should have happened if I did it right? nm

[jayfish]

11. If You Did It Correctly...

you would have waited a longish period of time for the drive to format. Once done, if the drive was your main drive, the PC would not boot. If it was a secondary drive, it would be almost as clean as the day it was bought.

Jay

[rhett o rick]

12. I will have to try it again. Thanks. Would that make it clean enough to give away? nm

[jayfish]

13. For Me, No.

I never give a drive away unless it is wiped according to D.O.D standards. Since I'm too lazy to ever get that anal, I don't give drives away. I've got a whole stack of them. :7

Jay

[Duer 157099]

18. NO! If you want to be extra careful (as you should)

First go over it a few times with something like DBAN

http://www.dban.org/

Then, reinstall win98. Then reformat the drive again, partitioning it a few times various ways. Then wipe again. Reinstall win98 again

Rinse lather repeat as determined by your personal level of paranoia.

*Then* give it away, if you must.

Personally, I find it safest to just store my old hard drives in a drawer as a backup of the data on them.

But that's me.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

19. Every PC I've given away comes with a NEW hard drive. Period

I might have a tall stack of dead (clickers) drives out back, but I sleep better at night.

LOL ... But that's me.

[travelingtypist]

16. Try degaussing.

If you really want everything gone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degaussing

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

17. Type format c: /u

The /u means "unconditional" which formats the drive without saving unformat info to the drive.

This is still not a secure wipe- data can still be easily recovered. There is government-standard secure wipe software available, but the best way is a screwdriver and a sledgehammer.