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how to start COMPLETELY over with a hard drive

S

santaliqueur

Member
so i need to know how to completely wipe a hard drive clean and start over. will something like killdisk accomplish this? i wiped a drive with killdisk, and booted off the windows xp disk, formatted, and installed the temp windows files, and rebooted. you are supposed to be able to boot from the hdd and install windows with those temp files, but i get 'error loading operating system'. something possibly wrong with my drive? or my brain? i wanted to get windows on this machine so i could migrate to linux on my newer machine. i had another thread in operating systems, and i tried the advice given, with no results. i post here because i'm fairly certain that it isn't operating system related. thanks for any help.

CJ
 
No need to use anything else except the Windows CD if you want to wipe a disk. Boot into the Windows CD, and delete any existing partitions on the HD. Re-create the partitions, format, and voila. Wiped hard disk.

HTH.
 
I've been using a product called Wipe Drive for years and it's excellent. It's used by the Dept of Defense and many law enforcement agencies so I'm assuming it's pretty good. Here's a Link

It takes 11 hours to wipe my 120GB drive completely clean so it's best to run it overnight. You can also select multiple passes, but one is really all you need.
 
ive used the windows cd, ive used killdisk, and a couple others on hiren's bootcd. i'm confused because i never used to use anything but the windows cd. now that i have this strange error message, i dont know what to do. even more strange, i successfully installed ubuntu linux a couple days before this error occurred. anyone have an idea about why i cant install windows on this machine?

CJ
 
Originally posted by: stevem326
I've been using a product called Wipe Drive for years and it's excellent. It's used by the Dept of Defense and many law enforcement agencies so I'm assuming it's pretty good. Here's a Link

It takes 11 hours to wipe my 120GB drive completely clean so it's best to run it overnight. You can also select multiple passes, but one is really all you need.
Click to expand...

Do you sell your hard drives often? Why would you go through this overkill?
 
Originally posted by: santaliqueur
ive used the windows cd, ive used killdisk, and a couple others on hiren's bootcd. i'm confused because i never used to use anything but the windows cd. now that i have this strange error message, i dont know what to do. even more strange, i successfully installed ubuntu linux a couple days before this error occurred. anyone have an idea about why i cant install windows on this machine?

CJ
Click to expand...

What's the error message?
 
Originally posted by: MrChad
Originally posted by: santaliqueur
ive used the windows cd, ive used killdisk, and a couple others on hiren's bootcd. i'm confused because i never used to use anything but the windows cd. now that i have this strange error message, i dont know what to do. even more strange, i successfully installed ubuntu linux a couple days before this error occurred. anyone have an idea about why i cant install windows on this machine?

CJ
Click to expand...

What's the error message?
Click to expand...


probably that one that states: "You have been violated, Please step away from the keyboard and get your younger brother to assist you" or something to that effect.

😛

 
"error loading operating system" is the message i get. i've probably installed windows 50 times, and at least 20 times with this very cd i'm using (i reformat and reinstall a lot). so i know the cd is good. i dont really have another hdd to try, at least not one that wouldnt be a complete pain in the ass to get to. i'm puzzled by something i've done dozens of times, can't seem to figure out what the problem is here. i'm going to try installing another OS to see what happens.

CJ
 
Originally posted by: Coro Dominicano
Is your windows xp cd Legit?.. if not, buy one or find one
Click to expand...

it is. should have mentioned that before. i ran memtest from a bootcd, and apparently i have bad blocks in my ram. i'm going to run a couple more memory diagnostic tools, but i would think that this is the main reason i'm having trouble.

CJ
 
Originally posted by: MrChad
Originally posted by: stevem326
I've been using a product called Wipe Drive for years and it's excellent. It's used by the Dept of Defense and many law enforcement agencies so I'm assuming it's pretty good. Here's a Link

It takes 11 hours to wipe my 120GB drive completely clean so it's best to run it overnight. You can also select multiple passes, but one is really all you need.
Click to expand...

Do you sell your hard drives often? Why would you go through this overkill?
Click to expand...

Nah, I've never sold a hard drive before. I guess I'm just a little paranoid about things like identity theft. There's all sorts of financial and personal info on my computer that I really would not want to see end up in the wrong person's hands. In fact, I use PGP to encrypt all of this data on my hard drive. That way, if my PC is ever stolen in a burglary, they'd have to try to figure out the encryption key which is next to impossible to do (it usually takes years, if ever, to do this).

Plus, I'm a computer geek and I really kinda like the overkill if you catch my drift. When it's done wiping the drive, I know it's 100% clean (which also means you get a trouble-free Windows installation).

And, this is just my own opinion (I may be wrong), I don't think the format done by the Windows CD really wipes out all of the data on your drive. I'd rather trust a product that's used by the Dept of Defense and major corporations to do this. Just my opinion.
 
Originally posted by: santaliqueur
Originally posted by: Coro Dominicano
Is your windows xp cd Legit?.. if not, buy one or find one
Click to expand...

it is. should have mentioned that before. i ran memtest from a bootcd, and apparently i have bad blocks in my ram. i'm going to run a couple more memory diagnostic tools, but i would think that this is the main reason i'm having trouble.

CJ
Click to expand...

Ugh, bad memory is a nightmare on installs and stability. If you've got more than one stick just leave the good one in and install while you RMA the bad one. If you don't maybe borrow one from a friend until you get yours RMA'd.
 
Those disk-wipe products are for security, not for "trouble-free" windows installation. What those programs do is ensure that you cannot read any data directly off a platter even if the HD has been disassembled and scanned by whatever magnetic imaging data recovery equipment the techies at intelligence agencies like the CIA has access to.

If you delete all partitions, re-create a partition and format it (and assuming no errors pop up on format), that's all you need in order to install Windows.
 
All that trouble to protect your identity, that too much. I'm more scared of the people that actually handle my credit card numbers when I purchase stuff at a store. There is no such thing as identity protection, someone somewhere has access to your information at any time.
 
Ugh, bad memory is a nightmare on installs and stability. If you've got more than one stick just leave the good one in and install while you RMA the bad one. If you don't maybe borrow one from a friend until you get yours RMA'd.
Click to expand...

yeah, i didnt even think to check the memory, not too often that memory goes bad. hopefully i can get a replacement, i'll have to see who it came from, i got this mem from my brother, and i dont think he even remembers where it came from. is most memory usually covered by the manufacturer? ugh, would hate to step down to 256 on this thing, as it would eventually run all my windows programs when i move to linux.

CJ
 
Originally posted by: wisdomtooth
Those disk-wipe products are for security, not for "trouble-free" windows installation. What those programs do is ensure that you cannot read any data directly off a platter even if the HD has been disassembled and scanned by whatever magnetic imaging data recovery equipment the techies at intelligence agencies like the CIA has access to.

If you delete all partitions, re-create a partition and format it (and assuming no errors pop up on format), that's all you need in order to install Windows.
Click to expand...

Oh, I know they're mainly for security purposes...but it's just a fringe benefit (the fact that a completely clean HD almost always means a smooth reinstall of windows). Thanks for your advice.
 
Originally posted by: LeoMael
All that trouble to protect your identity, that too much. I'm more scared of the people that actually handle my credit card numbers when I purchase stuff at a store. There is no such thing as identity protection, someone somewhere has access to your information at any time.
Click to expand...

Yeh, I agree. Sometimes it is a pain to have so much security on my home PC and I wonder if it's really worth it or not.

And I agree, there's probably a greater chance of my identity being stolen from some company that already has all of that info to begin with (SSN, address, etc)...it's almost every day that another company announces that "X" number of people may have had their personal info stolen from their systems. That actually happened at my college a few months ago. Somebody hacked into a server that was used to store info needed to create student ID cards. Guess what they got? Name, photo, address, SSN...and this is a computer behind a hardware firewall...unbelievable...
 
Originally posted by: stevem326
Oh, I know they're mainly for security purposes...but it's just a fringe benefit (the fact that a completely clean HD almost always means a smooth reinstall of windows). Thanks for your advice.
Click to expand...

Not necessary for a "smooth reinstall" of windows.

During my time at St. John's University's IT department where we deployed 2,500 clients campus-wide, we merely ghosted a Windows installation onto each system. No need to repartition or reformat at all, much less do a secure disk-wipe.

Just letting others know that your way isn't the only way (nor is it the most efficient way).

HTH.
 
Originally posted by: wisdomtooth
Originally posted by: stevem326
Oh, I know they're mainly for security purposes...but it's just a fringe benefit (the fact that a completely clean HD almost always means a smooth reinstall of windows). Thanks for your advice.
Click to expand...

Not necessary for a "smooth reinstall" of windows.

During my time at St. John's University's IT department where we deployed 2,500 clients campus-wide, we merely ghosted a Windows installation onto each system. No need to repartition or reformat at all, much less do a secure disk-wipe.

Just letting others know that your way isn't the only way (nor is it the most efficient way).

HTH.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the helpful info. And my way is definitely not the only way (nor the easiest way) to reinstall Windows. I would only recommend it for total computer geeks who are borderline obsessive-compulsive! My company uses ghost images to reinstall Windows, too, and it works fine.

I guess I use the "overkill" method because it makes me feel like it's more thorough or more secure, even though it might not be. It just makes me sleep better at night thinking this, even though it might not be any more secure than the CD format method.

 
i sometimes use the overkill method on my own PC, but at work, i'd never be able to do an individual install on each machine, nevermind the overkill method. it probably doesnt do any extra good, but it's just for peace of mind sometimes.

CJ
 
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