Best method to clean a HD

  • Thread starter Thread starter wxrr
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wxrr

My D drive is full. It is a second HD and contains various files I no longer
need.

What's the best way to clean it? Delete everything!
As an old DOS fan, I'd love to use D:\ del *.* if that would work. (I've
always wanted to do that)

--
Dell Deminsion 8250
Win XP Home SP2

Inspiron 9000
Win XP Media SP2
 
wxrr said:
My D drive is full. It is a second HD and contains various files I no longer
need.

What's the best way to clean it? Delete everything!
As an old DOS fan, I'd love to use D:\ del *.* if that would work. (I've
always wanted to do that)
Click to expand...


The Del command would work from the command prompt, but it's be just as
easy to use the Disk Management to format the partition.


--

Bruce Chambers

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http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

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killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot
 
wxrr said:
My D drive is full. It is a second HD and contains various files I
no longer need.

What's the best way to clean it? Delete everything!
As an old DOS fan, I'd love to use D:\ del *.* if that would work.
(I've always wanted to do that)
Click to expand...

Your Command Prompt should be able to do the old DOS command if you like...
Given this is a place for data and not application installs...

You could also use Disk Manager to format it...

Or you could - in Windows Explorer/My Computer - right-click on the drive
and choose "Format..."...
 
My D drive is full. It is a second HD and contains various files I no longer
need.

What's the best way to clean it? Delete everything!
As an old DOS fan, I'd love to use D:\ del *.* if that would work. (I've
always wanted to do that)
Click to expand...


Is there nothing on it you want to keep? Then there is no "best" way.
You've already gotten several suggestions, and they are all fine: you
can delete the files from a command prompt, select all the files and
press delete in Windows explorer, or just format the drive. Do
whatever is most comfortable for you. It doesn't matter.
 
wxrr said:
My D drive is full. It is a second HD and contains various files I no
longer
need.

What's the best way to clean it? Delete everything!
As an old DOS fan, I'd love to use D:\ del *.* if that would work. (I've
always wanted to do that)

--
Dell Deminsion 8250
Win XP Home SP2

Inspiron 9000
Win XP Media SP2
Click to expand...

If you're insistent on using msdos, try deltree of the root directory. Use
the switch "/y" in syntax for the command to unconditionally delete all.
Assuming you're referring to FAT32 partition, you have to use a version of
msdos that recognizes that. XP does not have the deltree command. Del
command does not delete directories/folders.

Myself in your situation in XP? Would remove the partition entirely and
create new one and format it NTFS.
 
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