Wiping drives

[D.Arbib]

I have two hard drives "C" and "D". I want to return "C" to a raw state or re-format. Windows XP on re-installation does not allow me to delete "C" whilst using "D" to re-install XP.

Does anyone know how to do this, please as I have a lot of unwanted programs and data on "C" which, mostly, I cannot remove manually?

 

[muradtalukdar]

you need the win xp startup disks, you can download them from microsoft site---or try the www.bootdisk.com--great stuff there too. You copy the disks onto floppy then set your bios to boot from floppy and away you go. Then it will take you through the formatting etc....

 

[muradtalukdar]

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?releaseid=33291
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?releaseid=33290

Xp pro and Xp home respectively...

 

[Inaris]

if you really need to clean a drive, try using Gdisk. It is used by the government to wipe drives very clean. And it takes a long time to run too...

 

[D.Arbib]

Yes, indeed, I need to re-format. And, I presume in so doing the drive is, in effect, wiped anyway. Am I wrong?

 

[Apokalipse]

If you format, everything is wiped and the drive is "renewed"
Just pop in the XP CD on boot and it will (should) come up with formatting options.
XP would format to NTFS by default, and this is fine if you're only using XP

 

[D.Arbib]

No, No! That's just the point. On re-installing XP pro from its CD
when you get to the point of selecting which drive to use, you have an option to delete and re-format, but this is not permitted and receive a message that there are essential components are on the drive.

I made the assumption that if I installed XP pro on to drive "C" using drive "D" that I could then delete and re-format "C". But still got the refusal.

The consequence is that I install a fresh copy of XP, update it and install various programs but a whole mass of nonsense is still on the drive, most of which I cannot delete manually.

It seems that I cannot get to the situation that would pertain if I fitted a new drive, which I am reluctant to do naturally.

 

[D.Arbib]

I am confused. Boot to "A"? Fine I can do that, but what must I put on to the floppy? Is just the MSDos start file enough or do I have to copy 6 floppies for XP pro/IE6Rev1a?

All this is horribly complicated. A year ago I installed new raw drives on my system and installed XP on each with no difficulty. Why can't I get back to this without going to this length - is there not a small program on the net that can do what I want?

 

[Mm9004]

No, this is the basic core of the matter.

If you boot with HDD (C:\, D:\) you cannot erase them can you? Why? Because once the process got to the part with the reformat data it would stop reformatting. Thus, you must boot to A:\ and run the process from there. That way, the entire process will go though without bumping into the data that you need to reformat the data.

You see? Only data can be used to manipulate data. If there is no data there is no function since data is the blood. And no program can change that. Because that would be using data.

Alternativly, I suppose you caould use a program and run it from A:\ but that would be the same thing as using the WinXP boot flopplys now wouldn't it?

 

[D.Arbib]

Of course If I tried to format a drive from itself it can 't work, But the point was that I was trying to use the "D" installation to format "C" drive.

I can also boot from the CD (drive "F") which I tried with the same result.

I do not understand the boot from "A" which is my floppy drive. What floppy(ies) do I need to use?