Cleaning/Formatting Old Hard Drives Before Selling

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Guest

I just purchased a new computer and am seliing my two older models. Both of them have to hard drives, each. One has Windows XP Home and the other has Windows XP Pro. Before delivering them to the buyer, I would like to format the drives to delete all data and programs, minus the operating systems. BUt I cannot seem to find how/where to do this with these editions of Windows. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
 
The Windows XP CD is bootable and contains all the tools necessary
to partition and format your drive. Follow this procedure and allow
Windows XP to delete all existing drive partitions:

1. Open your BIOS and set your "CD Drive as the first bootable device".

===> Accessing Motherboard BIOS
===> http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

2. Insert your Windows XP CD in the CD Drive and reboot your computer.
3. You'll see a message to boot to the CD....follow the instructions.
4. The setup menu will appear and you should elect to delete all the existing
Windows partitions and you're done! Then remove the Windows XP CD
from the drive and hit Ctrl + Alt + Del. The drive is now in a "Raw" state.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

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| I just purchased a new computer and am seliing my two older models. Both of them have to hard drives, each.
One has Windows XP Home and the other has Windows XP Pro. Before delivering them to the buyer, I would like to
format the drives to delete all data and programs, minus the operating systems. BUt I cannot seem to find
how/where to do this with these editions of Windows. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.
|
| Thanks!
 
Carrie

Thanks for the quick reply. I want to make sure that I leave the Windows OS on the C drives of each computer and just clean-up the D drives. Do your instructions allow for that

Again, many thanks

Steve
 
Steve said:
Carrie,

Thanks for the quick reply. I want to make sure that I leave the
Windows OS on the C drives of each computer and just clean-up the D
drives. Do your instructions allow for that?

Again, many thanks!

Steve

You should format the drives and either install the OS you want to supply
with your computer plus supplying them with the CD media, or wipe the drive
clean and supply the media you negotiated as part of the sale. If you agreed
to supply a working system, you will need to supply all the documentation
and CD/install media necessary to maintain the purchased computer.
--

Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://michaelstevenstech.com
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Michael

Thanks for the reply. I know I was committed to loading/providing the OS on the computers along with the discs, I has just double checking with Carrie that her instructions would allow me to do so

Thanks again

Steve
 
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