How To Wipe A Computer Of All Disk Contents
There are instances when it becomes necessary to erase disk contents. This article shows how to wipe a computer drive when you wish to reinstall Windows or are passing your computer on to a third party.
It goes without saying that prior to wiping the hard drive you should first backup all your data to an external media (USB hard drive, CD’s, etc.) and check that these files can be correctly read from the back up device.
How To Wipe A Computer: Formatting and Reinstall
If you want to wipe a computer in order to reinstall Windows then the process is relatively easy. This involves a two-stage process to first format the drive and then reinstall Windows.
Formatting a drive requires the use of a Windows boot disk. If you do not have the one that came with your computer then you can obtain one from the Microsoft support site (search for boot disk).
Shut down the computer and insert the boot disk into the floppy drive. When you restart the computer the system will boot from the system files on the disk. When an A: prompt is displayed enter Format: C to invoke the formatting application. You will be prompted with a warning to which you answer yes for formatting to begin.
Once formatting is done then put the Windows installation CD in the disk drive, remove the boot disk floppy and restart. The re-install process then starts.
This approach is most useful in computer maintenance and repair when a computer becomes inoperable and all other avenues of repairs have been attempted.
How To Wipe A Computer: Hard Drive Erasers
Formatting a drive will not completely erase your disks. In most cases it only removes indexes to your documents in the file allocation table.
To be certain that the data on your disk is completely erased requires using data erasing software. There are many options on the market (e.g. BCWipe or Data Eraser) and they all operate by recursively overwriting data clusters on the hard drive.
