I’m talking everthing including windows. All I want on it is what it had when on it I bought it new. (which is basically nothing.) I’m assuming this will give me all my memory back if not I need to know that too. My kids have downloaded so much crap its made my computer slugish and I don’t have any memory left either. Thanks for anyones input.
Go to the DOS prompt, and type “format c:”. Do this AFTER you’ve made sure that you have an install disk/CD for Windows.
I should mention that this will remove everything–your hard drive will be completely empty once you’re done, and until you reinstall the OS, your computer will be a paperweight.
Are you REALLY sure? This will give you a machine with just Windows and IE. Nothing else.
You’ll need a startup disk (Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs>Startup Disk), your Windows install CD (or System Recovery CD), any device driver floppys or CDs, and another computer you can post to here from (in case anything goes wrong). Also, write down any/all passwords or settings you may need to restore.
Use the startup disk to startup to DOS w/ CD support.
At the a:> prompt, type format c: /s.
Put the Windows CD in the CD drive.
Type x:\setup (where “x” is the drive letter of your CD drive).
Follow the directions to install Windows, supplying the required driver disks as needed.
Uh, guys, I think he said ‘Remove everything, including Windows.’ The best way I know to completely wipe a hard drive is to put a partitioning utility onto a floppy, have the PC boot from the floppy, and just delete all of the partitions on the drive. This will completely erase everything on the drive. EVERYTHING. It is akin to the Soviet ‘scorched earth’ policy: Leave nothing standing. You won’t have diddly squat, not even a partition structure.
There are programs you can use to restore data from drives without a partition structure, so it isn’t a complete loss if you do erase it all, but make a point of doing a full backup of all software, files, data, etc. you want to save. Buy a stack of floppies or, better yet, a Zip Drive.
Now, for the software:
http://home.tiscalinet.be/hanslr/frutpart.htm -Partitioning utilities. You can really burn yourself with these, but if you want to erase the drive anyway, WTF. (The first utility on there is a partition restoration program. There’s a reason for that.)
http://www.fileplanet.com/index.asp?section=1311&file=63754 -R-Studio: An undelete utility that can salvage data after the partition structure has been destroyed.
Google can find more types of both of these programs. Good luck.
You don’t metion what kind of computer you have. A lot of companies include a disk that will wipe your hard drive clean and install the programs that were originally sent out on the computer. This usually does not include anything harder than popping the disk into the drive, and answering okay when prompted. Be sure to back up anything you consider crucial to your life. (Like your bookmark to the SDMB)
Is OS seprate from windows 98? I don’t remember installing this when I got the computer. I still have my win98cd.
Shakes, I’m a non expert who had occasion to do a complete wipe. I’m sure many of the others can provide you with better specific information, but I do share with you a certain less-than-guru perspective.
First off, the OS (operating system) is the windows 98 you mentioned. Be sure that in addition to the win98 CD you also have your “product key,” the serial number that was printed on the little book you got with your computer. If you lost that “key” I’m sure someone here can tell you how to get it from Uncle Bill before you wipe your comp.
Start disk, you will most likely need one, unless you can change your BIOS settings to boot from your CD-ROM at which time you can reload windows from the win98 CD. But all a start disk will cost you is one floppy, so make one anyway. (shout out for help if needed).
Make a copy of everything you can possibly want to keep. When I did my wipe I saved everything in ZIP archives, including my ISP password. I forgot to save a copy of WinZip, after all you can download it from the company site, as long as you don’t need WinZip to open the archive with your password to get online. [ that sound you heard was my head hitting my desk]
If you have a printer, print out a copy of all instructions regarding what you are about to do, the links from this thread and this one from Microsoft’s knowledge base. Once you wipe your drive, unless you have a second comp, you will be offline till you get your OS, etc. reinstalled.
I recall being intimidated when going through all of this, but if I could get through it, so can you. Good luck.
All right thanks guys,I’m gonna give it a try in the morn. If you don’t hear from me in a couple of days send help.(stat)
I’m totally computer illiterate…but wouldn’t it make more sense to buy a larger hard drive, rather than make eternal enemies of your children?
I’m with you on that one but usually what happens is the kids will download something (usually dragonballz or something of the like) check it out once then forget about it. My odler kid has like ten different versions of virus check type programs that all run at the same f’n time or there is also ten different versions of some type of program that is supposed to make your computer run faster. thing is when you got a hundred programs running at once it tends to make your computer run like a turtle.
Jeesh, all I have to do is turn my computer on, go directly to task manager and I already have fifteen programs going and I haven’t even brought up my AOL yet. :mad:
Sorry, slipped into geek-speek there. Windows 98 is the operating system, so if you have a boot disk (look that up under the help, accessible by pressing F1) you’re good to go.
Come now, you can tell your SDMB colleagues the truth. You’ve just downloaded too much porn, haven’t you? 
Before you format, are you getting a message that says “out of memory”? Or does it say “No hard drive space available”? Because memory is NOT hard drive storage. Memory is RAM, and if you’re getting “out of memory” messages, you should be investing in RAM, not reformatting your HD.
Its sluggish because you haven’t used DEFRAG for a long time. That keeps your files nice & pretty & the computer fast.
Anyway he seems off to do this project so we just have to wait & see what happened.
Does the reformatting process REALLY eliminate everything on the disk? That is, would it be adequate for security purposes? (Like, you’re a corporation that wants to destroy your records every five years.) Or could a dedicated individual still recover some data from said drive?
Would you be better off just holding it next to a big magnet…? 
Magnets do work, but they need to be pretty powerful or you need to take your time to erase everything. Data is recoverable if you just do a quick format of your partitions. Some data may be recoverable even with a full format. I think the best thing to do, if you must wipe all information off the drive, is to zero it out. Many harddrives include a utility to do this. Basically, this is recoverable as well, but the only things there are 0’s.
Reformatting won’t even stop a talented amateur. The standards for disposing of disks used on classified data systems call for the disks to be shredded and incinerated. If you want to reuse the drive, it calls for something like 300 overwrite passes alternating between all ones, all zeros, zero-one, and one-zero. There may also be some random data passes in there too. Good forensic evidence technicians can reconstruct data that’s been erased, reformated, overwritten, etc.
For more info on secure deletion, check this:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/secure_del.html
Other posters have explained that formatting doesn’t necessarily completely erase everything on the drive. I’d like to add here that neither does deleting the partitions. When you do this, you’re only touching that small area of the drive that holds the partition tables. If you don’t otherwise repartition and reformat the drive, you can recreate the partition table exactly as before and still find all of your data completely intact.
If you format a drive, you can UNformat it too, unless you have written to it again 