How do I completley erase my computer's hard drive and start over?

M

MrCatastrophic

New Member
I recently received a computer from my uncle that has been through several hands and has viruses, illegally downloaded programs, etc.When i first got it, it started up fine, but after a while it wouldn't even let me log in. How do i completley erase the hard drive and other memory components to start fresh?
 
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Boot to the install cd and delete the existing partitions and then repartition, format and install windows.

However, most store bought computers have a recovery partition now instead of reinstall cd's. You would have to boot into the recovery partition.

What computer is this?
 
It won't even let me do that, i'm lucky if it even gets to a log in screen. It usually just turns on, and starts to load up then powers off. Every once in a while it will pop up saying certain errors and what not.
 
Sounds like it could be overheating. Remove everything from the system thats not required to boot up. Use one stick of ram, keyboard, mouse, video. Remove any pci cards and unplug any usb devices and try booting up. It may also have a bad hard drive.
 
hey download a program called hd shredder, it totally strips the drive bare even of the sectors, its free, and it is an iso you burn to make a boot disc
 
I actually got it to start up, but it has application errors saying "The exception Integer division by zero. (0Xc0000094) occured in the application at location 0x0109a541" And this pops up for several applications and if i click ok or cancel it restarts it.
 
Only if all else fails, you could try to low level format the HDD. That completely wipes it. Writes zeros to EVERYTHING. Catch is how do you get a "Low Level Format" program ? They run from a floppy, so you need a floppy drive to do it. If you have access to another computer, you can download the appropriate prgram from your HDD manufacturers site, or use TESTHDD, which you can download Here : http://www.testhdd.narod.ru/

What you do is click the underlined download link in the upper left corner of the page and that will download "TESTHDD". (The site is in Russian, but the program is in English). Once you have it downloaded, you take a floppy and make it bootable by right clicking the A Drive then left click "Format", then in the popup window, checkmark the "Create An MS DOS Startup Disk" box, then click "Start". That will create a bootable floppy disk which you copy the downloaded "TESTHDD" program onto.

Once that is done, you enter the bios on your computer and set "A" drive as the first boot drive. Having done that You can then use that floppy disk to either : Format your "C" drive, or FDisk your HDD, - wiping all partitions on it, or "Low Level Format" your HDD, writing zeros to EVERYTHING on the HDD.

NOTE : Formatting is preferable to Fdisking, and Fdisking is preferable to Low Level Formatting.
 
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