Been searching but to no avail.

[2D]

I can't for the life of me find out how to wipe my hard drive on my PC.

Help me and explain it like you're talking to a 5 year old por favor.

P.S. I have no disks to boot from and I'm running Vista.

[BuryYourFlame]

If you go to 'my computer' then right click on the C drive, there should be a 'format' option. This will erase everything...and I mean...everything.

edit: if you don't have a boot disk then what are you planning to do after wiping the drive?

[2D]

If you go to 'my computer' then right click on the C drive, there should be a 'format' option. This will erase everything...and I mean...everything.

edit: if you don't have a boot disk then what are you planning to do after wiping the drive?

I need a work around. No disk but if I wipe without something to boot off of I'm fucked. Hence the 5 year old stuff. I'm losing my mind. DX

[Zero Beat]

He just wants the computer to look at... Not do anything :P

Jeff your going to need a disk (xp, vista, windows 7) to install if you wipe your HD.

Say you get plain white paper, draw lines and write a story on it and use all the greyled. Then rub it all out, your left with white paper. and nothing to write with :P

[Hatsune Miku]

Why don't you just restore it to factory settings?

[Aηdy]

Download 'Ultimate Boot CD' this will include tools to format your drive which run straight off the CD.

What are you doing with the drive? If you are going to install another OS on it then there's always an option to format in the set-up anyway.

[Shadoukun]

If you go to 'my computer' then right click on the C drive, there should be a 'format' option. This will erase everything...and I mean...everything.

edit: if you don't have a boot disk then what are you planning to do after wiping the drive?

You can't wipe an active drive. Duh.

[Scarface]

I would suggest making a back up disk and putting everything that's important on that disk because when you format the disk as said above wipes everything off and will have nothing on there.

[2D]

He just wants the computer to look at... Not do anything :P

Jeff your going to need a disk (xp, vista, windows 7) to install if you wipe your HD.

Say you get plain white paper, draw lines and write a story on it and use all the greyled. Then rub it all out, your left with white paper. and nothing to write with :P

Well where the hell does one get a disk? DX

Why don't you just restore it to factory settings?

I said 5 year old. Not 25 year old. I don't even know how to find anything on a PC much less do stuff.

Download 'Ultimate Boot CD' this will include tools to format your drive which run straight off the CD.

What are you doing with the drive? If you are going to install another OS on it then there's always an option to format in the set-up anyway.

No idea what I wanna do. I want all the shit that the previous owner had on it gone though. And all the shit I got as well.

I would suggest making a back up disk and putting everything that's important on that disk because when you format the disk as said above wipes everything off and will have nothing on there.

Wut.




Serious question. Can I just put some OS's on a thumbdrive and try booting off one of them? If it's possible can someone tell a 5 year old how to do that?

[JackOfClubs]

Well where the hell does one get a disk? DX



I said 5 year old. Not 25 year old. I don't even know how to find anything on a PC much less do stuff.



No idea what I wanna do. I want all the shit that the previous owner had on it gone though. And all the shit I got as well.



Wut.




Serious question. Can I just put some OS's on a thumbdrive and try booting off one of them? If it's possible can someone tell a 5 year old how to do that?
To do a Factory Restore, when you are booting the computer up, usually press something like F10 or DEL (Its different on a lot of computers, it might be at the bottom of the BIOS screen which is the screen you see when you first start your computer) and the computer should come up with something that gives you options and something like "THIS DELETES EVERYTHING ON YOUR HARD DRIVE AND REINSTALLS WINDOWS." (Yes, in caps like that). Choose that if you want to go back to when your computer was brand new out of the box.

I know that you can run a lot of Linux OS's from a flash drive, but I'm not sure about Windows. And Windows takes up in excess of 2GB, whereas Ubuntu and a lot of other Linux systems can be run and installed from a CD, generally taking up about 680MB.

[Aηdy]

You can run TinyXP off a USB stick, I have a version that is 360mb.

But you're still not making it clear. What do you want to wipe the drive for? Are you doing to install another OS or use the drive as storage?

If you're installing another OS, then as I already said, there's an option to format the drive when installing any OS.

If you're using if for storage, aka a second drive in a PC, then all you have to do is plug it in then format it from windows.

[2D]

To do a Factory Restore, when you are booting the computer up, usually press something like F10 or DEL (Its different on a lot of computers, it might be at the bottom of the BIOS screen which is the screen you see when you first start your computer) and the computer should come up with something that gives you options and something like "THIS DELETES EVERYTHING ON YOUR HARD DRIVE AND REINSTALLS WINDOWS." (Yes, in caps like that). Choose that if you want to go back to when your computer was brand new out of the box.

I know that you can run a lot of Linux OS's from a flash drive, but I'm not sure about Windows. And Windows takes up in excess of 2GB, whereas Ubuntu and a lot of other Linux systems can be run and installed from a CD, generally taking up about 680MB.

System restore sounded fantastic until it didn't work. I have a flash drive that holds 8 gigs so space isn't really an issue.

You can run TinyXP off a USB stick, I have a version that is 360mb.

But you're still not making it clear. What do you want to wipe the drive for? Are you doing to install another OS or use the drive as storage?

If you're installing another OS, then as I already said, there's an option to format the drive when installing any OS.

If you're using if for storage, aka a second drive in a PC, then all you have to do is plug it in then format it from windows.

I want to wipe the drive to get rid of all the crap on there that I don't need. I need an OS so that's a given. I don't care what OS it is just so long as it will freakin work.

I tried installing Ubuntu. It looked promising until lo and behold, it didn't work. I don't get it. Why is this not just simple?

[Zero Beat]

It is Jeff, your just not doing it the right way. Wiping the whole HD isnt always good. Got around $300 cash lieing about? Get windows 7, do the wipe and install it. Got $100? Get vista off ebay or something. Some shops still sell vista. Just dont be lazy Jeff and delete the crap yourself. Find all the porn and delete it! :P

[2D]

It is Jeff, your just not doing it the right way. Wiping the whole HD isnt always good. Got around $300 cash lieing about? Get windows 7, do the wipe and install it. Got $100? Get vista off ebay or something. Some shops still sell vista. Just dont be lazy Jeff and delete the crap yourself. Find all the porn and delete it! :P

I got W7 for $30 (student discount) and lo and behold it couldn't install. Needed some drivers that were non-existent. I'll just give up on it. This computer is shit.

[Zero Beat]

Like i said Jeff, stop being lazy and do it yourself. Go through and uninstall crap you dont need, install a program called Ccleaner and run that a few times. Disk error check, etc etc etc.

[BuryYourFlame]

OP requested lock.