HP laptop wipe hard drive??

[juiced13]

Hey guys i have my old hp laptop i am going to give it to my parents so they will have one but i first want to wipe the drive clean of all things on it. Can any of you tell my how to go about doing this.'
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thanks in advance

 

[Kaiser]

This depends on the amount of scrubbing you want to do. If you are giving it to your parents, I would say a normal format would suffice. If you had sensitve data on it and wanted give it to someone else, I would wipe the partitions. Can you clarify what you would like to do?

 

[juiced13]

Just the normal scrubbing will be fine that should speed it back up a little to. the only thing they do on there is ck email and maybe look up a few things once a month or so.

i appreciate the help

 

[j8282]

1..reboot computer and press F8 (will be able to select safe mode ...etc)


2..Select Command Prompt to boot up in

3..Should see prompt A:

4.. At prompt type format C: (this formats the c drive)
Should look like this A:\>format c:

5.. press enter...

This should wipe out the hard drive and you will need to reload windows operation system afterwards


Hope this helps

 

[Kaiser]

1..reboot computer and press F8 (will be able to select safe mode ...etc)


2..Select Command Prompt to boot up in

3..Should see prompt A:

4.. At prompt type format C: (this formats the c drive)
Should look like this A:\>format c:

5.. press enter...

This should wipe out the hard drive and you will need to reload windows operation system afterwards


Hope this helps

This is very wrong.

First, he would have to have a floppy drive. With that floppy drive it would have to have format.com on a floppy inserted in it and he would have to boot from the floppy, not safe mode command prompt.

Second if he boots from Safe Mode Command Prompt, he will be running the operating system from C: which means it would never be able to format because essentially it would be trying to erase itself while running. Impossible.


Now on to how to remediate this:


1. BACK UP OR TRANSFER YOUR DATA

2. Download the newest network driver (both Wireless and Wired) from HP's site for your laptop (model should be listed on bottom of laptop), extract it and copy it to CD or thumb drive.

3. Do you have the original disks which came with the computer? Is there a disk that says Operating System, or System Recovery? If so, you should be able to boot from one of these disks. During the operation you do not want to specify repair, you would want to do a clean install. During this setup you will have the option to format the drive by clicking DRIVE OPTIONS for Vista/Windows 7, or if it is XP, it will simply ask if you want to format the drive. (If, when you get to this point, says that it cannot find a hard drive, let me know and we will have to walk you through it)

4. Mount your network drivers (plug it in if you can instead of wireless for speed), download the rest of the drivers from HP's site that are needed. More than likely: Video, Audio, Chipset, Modem, SATA. You might also want to update the BIOS by downloading and installing. This will confirm that the newer drivers that you are downloading are compatible and will provide smoother running. Reboot as needed.

5. Start/Run "Winver" to show you what Service Pack you are running from the install you just did.

6. Run Windows Update, and select to do the newest Windows Service Pack first or you may be wasting your time. At the time of this post the newest operating system service packs are as follows:

Vista, Service Pack 2. Unfortunately,the setup sucks and if you are at Service Pack 0 (no service pack), it will first make you install Service Pack 1 prior to installing Servie Pack 2. This is like watching paint dry for an hour.

Windows XP, Service Pack 3. You can install this right on top of Service Pack 0 (no service pack)

7. Re-install your applications that came with the laptop.

 

[j8282]

Well I thought it might but I mainly use Dariks boot and nuke and Acronis for everything. I will have to try the format c: command again

 

[Kaiser]

You are certainly welcome to try anything, but trust me, it's a waste of time. The whole operating system is loaded into Safe Mode while in Safe Mode Command Prompt. You can also type explorer and hit enter and the whole GUI shell will pop up with Start menu and desktop. As I said though you are welcome to try. I believe it comes back an constantly errors out because it asks for Volume Label and no matter what you type, even if it is correct, it just exits and says invalid. Yet you can do it to a D: partition AS LONG as it does not house a pagefile, even if the Volume Label is the same as C:.

 

[Delawerebadboy]

You are certainly welcome to try anything, but trust me, it's a waste of time. The whole operating system is loaded into Safe Mode while in Safe Mode Command Prompt. You can also type explorer and hit enter and the whole GUI shell will pop up with Start menu and desktop. As I said though you are welcome to try. I believe it comes back an constantly errors out because it asks for Volume Label and no matter what you type, even if it is correct, it just exits and says invalid. Yet you can do it to a D: partition AS LONG as it does not house a pagefile, even if the Volume Label is the same as C:.

Nice avatar

 

[Riverdog]

securely wipe hard disks

Formating and reinstalling the system software by itself does not delete the actual data on the HDD. It just makes the data unreadable by the OS.

And you should wipe the HDD clean even if you just give this laptop to your parents. There is a real possibility that the laptop can be lost or stolen and your data fall into the wrong hands. I've even heard stories that people who brought their laptops in for repair had their drives scrutinized by the repair shop.

It's easy to completely erase a HDD, you just use software meant to do this kind of thing and boot the computer from a floppy or usb drive.

See the following for more info/software:

How to REALLY erase a hard drive | ZDNet
How to REALLY erase a hard drive | ZDNet

How to Completely Erase a Hard Drive
How to Completely Erase a Hard Drive - PCWorld

 

[BOOMSHAKER]

What happens if you swap out the old HDD for a new HDD? Would that solve the problem? With HDD's being so cheap now, I would assume geting a new HDD is the easiest way. ( just a thought, I am no pc wizz at all) I would assume then you would need a windows disk to load or would the new hard drive come with a windows OP software?