Posted: 5/16/2006 8:48:47 AM EDT
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I have Windows XP Professional version and I want to reformat my computer... Some of my games keep closing in the middle of play and everything locks up... The audio will still go sometimes, but the video stops. I'm sure it's due to some problem with my video card... But this is the 3rd video card I've used and the same thing keeps happening. I don't have ANY OTHER VERSION OF WINDOWS to use as a boot disk or anything... So... Anyone have any ideas/suggestions on how I could reformat with just my hands and the internet? Thanks. -Covert |
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Before I reinstall any Windows products, I always run DBAN first, and write Zero's to the hard drive. You can't get a whole lot cleaner than that. After it's done, I just install Windows like normal. DBAN website |
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My floppy drive doesn't work, so here's what I have to do?:.... I copy the thing to a CD-ROM, then make sure that the start-up reads the CD-ROM Drive for the boot CD, then it'll just do it all on it's own? You said to write ZERO'S to the hard drive... Well, how do I do that and where? |
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Floppy drive doesn't work. I have XP Pro, so when I put the CD in to "reformat it", it just creates another partitian... Which I do NOT want. I want to delete this CURRENT partitian and make a brand new one. Don't really know any other way to do it. (not very computer literate). |
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Yep, 2 ways to do this If you floppy is broken, download the CD image for DBAN. It will download a .iso file. (You must have a cd burner to do this.) Get the 1.0.6 version. Burn the CD. You'll have to go into your bios and set your CD drive to boot before your hard drive (if it's not already). When the computer starts up, it will boot into the DBAN program. It will be a blue screen and give you some options. Just type in autonuke and it will do it by itself. When it's done, just pop in your Windows CD, and restart your computer and install like normal. OR You can just pop in your Windows CD, and restart the computer. It will probably come up and say 'Press any key to boot from CD' so do just that. When the Windows install screen finds the active partitions, it will show the one that you currently have Windows installed. Here you should be able to delete that particular partition (don't remember every step, as I'm doing it off of memory) I think you have to hid D to delete the partition, then it will ask you if your sure, than I think you have to hit L to actually delete it. Then load windows like normal. I personally like DBAN quite a bit, because I know my hard drive is as clean as I can get it, but the 2nd option is just as easy. Good luck! |
Unnecessary unless you're worried about someone else reading the disk. |
Which is fine. But you already are when formatting a logical drive. You will see no benefit from this outside of security. |
that might actually be a very bad idea. if the recovery cds are in a hidden partion, that just costed him about $30 dollars for the cd's convert8645 do you have the cds that came with the computer. or did it give you directions on how to reinstall windoz? dont get me wrong dban is a very good program. its just not always the best for every situation |
Yes, if he has just plain recovery CDs, DBAN'ing would be a very bad idea because he would lose that hidden partition. I guess I was assuming there wasn't, since he was just talking about a format, and that Covert8645 had just plain old Windows CD. I work for a K-12 school, so we really have to worry about student privacy issues. This is especially so when I have to wipe servers before they go to surplus, which is why I use DBAN. |