How can I wipe my hard drive?

[jman15]

I tried deleting the current version of xp off my comp because of the problem below, but it wouldn't let me. Is there another way to do it? THis is what happened.

I don't know if this is something that happens because of my hard drive or OS, but I am guessing something is wrong within my OS because it started happening after i made changes to that. So here is what happened:

My windows firewall was not working and kept giving me an error i did not recognize. So I figured I'd "repair" windows. However, when I went to do so it did not give me this option, it gave me the option to upgrade windows. So I did. After the upgrade everything was still on my computer, I had to reinstall my wireless card, sound card and my direct x was reset to version 8.1.

I fixed the wireless and sound card. COuldn't figure out how to fix directx, but did download the latest version of divx just in case it wiped out my video codecs. So Then after everything but directx was working fine, including my firewall, I went to play a downloaded video from ign.com to no avail. My computer got really laggy and would freeze for a long period of time then unfreeze for a short second and repeat. It does this no matter the video file I use and it only does this when i go to play video. I have not tested music yet.

Then after all that failed I decided to wiup my hard drive and completely reinstall windows. However when i went to delete the previously installed version it told me i couldn't because their were key load files in it or something and so reinstalling windows didn't help because it basically kept the older version around so its problems still persist.

So my questions:
A) obviously, how do i fix it, what is wrong?
B) Am I still missing codecs and that is causing the problem?
C) does directx play a role in this?
D) Would purchasing a new hard drive and reinstalling windows on that help make it go away, or is there just something wrong with my OS?
E) WHy couldn't I delete that partition? i always have been able to before.

 

[StrangleHold]

Do you have a XP cd, and you want to format the drive and reinstall XP

 

[PC eye]

For A, B, and C, You probably deleted or made inactive the one or codecs needed or you now have a glitch with video drivers or the player used. Direct X is far from the problem here since that is for 3D rendering and not for video while there is still Direct X for sound. A simple download of DX 9c would correct that since it goes right on.

Buying a new drive would only be done if you needed a storage drive added to the primary or wanted a larger faster drive or switch from ide to SATA. The problem there is not the drive preventing the wipe of the drive. If your current installation of Windows lacked SP2 and you installed that later the installler on the SP1 or no SP disk would be unable to delete the current installation. The older can't wipe the newer. I ran into that when someone asked for help in wiping a drive where XP Home and Pro editions were being dual booted.

The XP cd here then was an SP1 disk that couldn't wipe the two SP2 included versions of XP. Do you have a cd writer? A GParted live cd will remove any installation Windows or Linux and is free for download at http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/gparted/gparted-livecd-0.3.1-1.iso?download Simply burn the iso onto a cd-r not rw and boot from it. Once you go through the language, resolution, and other initial choices the gui comes up with the first drive and partitions display. Simpy highlight you partition and press the delete and then apply buttons at the top to see it wiped clean.

 

[StrangleHold]

Any 2000 or XP CD will delete any XP partition

 

[PC eye]

Any 2000 or XP CD will delete any XP partition

BUNK! An XP SP1 installation disk will not remove either an XP Home or Pro installation from an SP2 disk. I ran into that problem to clean off a drive with two pirated copies of XP on an eMachines headache there. That was before eventually getting a newer one with SP2 on it and having GParted onhand. The use of fdisk on an old 98 startup initially had problems as well. The newer will wipe the older but not the other way around.

 

[SirKenin]

First off. Yes, DirectX can cause the problem with video. It is required for the video overlay. If that isn't working properly, you'll have issues.

Second, every XP CD comes with the ability to delete and create a partition, regardless of the Windows OS version present on the drive. I have one of the original XP CDs and even it has the capability. It's sitting right here in my drawer... Even the betas had the capability.

Gpart is completely unnecessary, and that recommendation is getting old and tiresome.

I'm not quite sure why you couldn't delete the partition. If you have your OEM disk handy, boot off the CD and try again. You can't do it from within Windows. For some reason that's what it sounds like you're trying to do.

Quite frankly I wouldn't bother repairing the Windows. I could walk you through it probably, but what's the sense. It's a lot less frustrating to wipe it out and start over. Like I said, forget this other nonsense and just boot off your XP CD. As you go through it it will ask you to choose a partition and give you the options there to delete it and then create a new one and format it before proceeding. Do not select repair install, and do not select recovery console. Just trash it and start over.

 

[StrangleHold]

BUNK! An XP SP1 installation disk will not remove either an XP Home or Pro installation from an SP2 disk. I ran into that problem to clean off a drive with two pirated copies of XP on an eMachines headache there. That was before eventually getting a newer one with SP2 on it and having GParted onhand. The use of fdisk on an old 98 startup initially had problems as well. The newer will wipe the older but not the other way around.

You dont know what your doing, I can delete a XP sp2 partition with a 2000 cd much less a XP cd. I have a XP cd from 2002 with no SP and can! Its a NTSF partition dont care what SP you have!!

 

[PC eye]

You dont know what your doing, I can delete a XP sp2 partition with a 2000 cd much less a XP cd. I have a XP cd from 2002 with no SP and can! Its a NTSF partition dont care what SP you have!!

And you are way off there. The XP disk with SP1 was tried and gave the "newer version" message when it was unable to delete the two partitions seen at the time. Although you could install Windows with that disk it was still a recovery not full version disk used there. Finally a failed fdisk attempt allowed just enough 98 to be installed to see that deleted. The alternative there would have been the use of Active Killdisk or another zero filler.

For a quick removal of any partition or even resizing or moving one around GParted has shown itself to be a top choice free drive utility instead of paying out for Partition Magic or any other retail program.

 

[StrangleHold]

it was still a recovery not full version disk used there

Who was talking about recovery disk??

 

[PC eye]

Who was talking about recovery disk??

That was an XP disk used for installing Windows. That also had the abilty to create and format new partitions until it ran into two versions of XP with SP2 where the "cannot delete newer version" message was seen.

With the installation disk available not being able to delete the current installation of Windows as well as the partition one of the beest alternates is the Gnome Partition Editor. That was also used to remove the Vista beta version tried out here.

 

[jman15]

so i downloaded the gparted thing and picked
no extra boot options
english
tried 24, 16 and 32 for my color thing.
did 1080? 760 or whatever that option is for resolution size
then it asked me to pick a key map or something and i have no idea what to pick for that so i chose the first one
and then i think it asked one more question
but in the end it gave me an error saying there was no screen or something. What is up with this?

 

[StrangleHold]

I just reinstalled 2000 on a machine with vista 64, the drive had XP pro SP2 too , its just a NTFS partition any way you look at it!

 

[StrangleHold]

so i downloaded the gparted thing and picked
no extra boot options
english
tried 24, 16 and 32 for my color thing.
did 1080? 760 or whatever that option is for resolution size
then it asked me to pick a key map or something and i have no idea what to pick for that so i chose the first one
and then i think it asked one more question
but in the end it gave me an error saying there was no screen or something. What is up with this?

Have you got a full XP cd

 

[jman15]

im trying to wip my hard drive with the program not reinstall xp, why would i need that? And yes i have the full xp but it would not let me delete the partition.

 

[PC eye]

im trying to wip my hard drive with the program not reinstall xp, why would i need that? And yes i have the full xp but it would not let me delete the partition.

Just ignore the other noise you have been hearing. GParted goes through a list of default options where one is highlighted already. The only one changed here is the 1024x768 brought upto 1280x1024. With the others you simply press the enter key to continue through to the interface itself. You probably went off track and ended up at a prompt seen on a black screen. Simply reboot with it and don't change anything but the resolution setting. With the skip this and others simply keep pressing the enter key.

 

[jman15]

Just tried doing that and my monitor gives me "out of range"
So I change the color depth to 32 instead of 24 and it is the only one that will work. But I still get the no screen error no matter what resolution i choose.

 

[SirKenin]

Just tried doing that and my monitor gives me "out of range"
So I change the color depth to 32 instead of 24 and it is the only one that will work. But I still get the no screen error no matter what resolution i choose.

Dude.... Trust me on this one. He has you barking up the wrong tree. He does it in almost every thread.

Use this tool to manage the partition:

http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Utilities/Disk_Maintenance_and_Repair_Utilities/Super_Fdisk.html

Here is another good one:

http://partitionlogic.org.uk/

 

[PC eye]

Just tried doing that and my monitor gives me "out of range"
So I change the color depth to 32 instead of 24 and it is the only one that will work. But I still get the no screen error no matter what resolution i choose.

What did you use to burn it with? Generally the free version of BurnOn works spotless when burning the iso to cd here. The default 24bit works with just about any system. You can grab BurnOn at http://www.burnworld.com/burnoncddvd/

It's one most effective tools. With the free version the option to buy web page will open as soon as you are done with it. But this is one tool that has been used often enough for dual OSing two not one hard drive.

 

[Angel.of.Death]

HOLD! N00bs!

1.) Make a boot floppy
2.) Use FDISK to delete partition
3. )Format Partition
4. ) Boot XP AND LET HER RIPP!

PC eye is the only guys who seems to know how to do it. This is the simplest, fail-safe method.

 

[SirKenin]

HOLD! N00bs!

1.) Make a boot floppy
2.) Use FDISK to delete partition
3. )Format Partition
4. ) Boot XP AND LET HER RIPP!

PC eye is the only guys who seems to know how to do it. This is the simplest, fail-safe method.

PC eye is actually the only guy who seems that he doesn't know what he's doing actually. If he can't even delete a partition with an XP disk he isn't much of a tech. Be better off selling furniture.

Your way doesn't even really work, and I'll tell you why. You should create an NTFS partition for security reasons, amongst others, and FDISK can't do that. So he's back to the same old problem.