wiping a hardrive

[atpat22]

is it okey to magnetically wipe a hard drive, if so how is it done. secondly will this remove viruses and adware, and anti-spyware programs

 

[Trifid]

Magnetically as in get a powerful magnet and put it next to the drive? Yes but it is a bit excessive. It is simple to just format while in XP setup.

 

[atpat22]

how do you get to the setup it just gives me an error wen i try to get the disk setup, how strong does the magnet need to be

 

[SYL\X/3K]

heres 2 ways u can try clearing the HD
1. pull out the HD and shove it to a different system, set the jumpers to slave, go to My computer right click the secondary HD and click format
2. if ur planning to reinstall windows, then boot from ur Windows xp Cd and during the setup u can formatt it from there.

there are other ways to format HD such as software but these are the basic ones

90% of the time u can wipe out viruses,etc by formatting the other 10% can be permanent

 

[sPlAtOiD]

What are you trying to do? What do you mean setup? Are you trying to install windows? Use a win 98 floppy disk and boot from it and run format C: or whatever your drive letter is.