How do I properly whipe a Hard Drive?

[Manhuntkotor]

Computer is very messed up right now. Viruses and stuff and its really making me mad. How do I whipe a hard drive clean? anything special I need to do? I will back up all special files to disks.... please help me out, thanks...

 

[iam_not_2fast4u]

you can do format or kill disc

 

[Hefemeister]

when you reload windows you can format the drive. If you have multiple partitions make sure and format all of them if you want to make sure bad stuff is gone.

 

[jogoz]

Use the Windows Disc and Boot from CD then Format and re-install.

 

[Nitestick]

ditto the last post. or use third party software to format and then re-install windows. if you want to truly wipe that hdd clean i.e. so that the FBI don't find anything you have to use something like kill-disk. its at either killdisk.com or kill-disk.com, can't remember which

 

[mike4realz]

well before you backup your files make sure they are clean before restoring them

 

[Nitestick]

goes without saying but still a good point. i had a recurring virus hidden in one of my backups that i didn't pin down for a while. eventuall it dawned on me and i restored the clean files from my backup using linux.