hard drive wipe clean

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Baiamonte
  • Start date Start date
J

John Baiamonte

Hi,
I'm trying to help a friend with an older HP computer ( 4 or 5 years)
running Windows 98. I must wipe his hard drive clean and reload windows. At
present he cannot boot up. I have a copy of Maxblast 3.0 and whatever
software comes with the new Westeren Ditigal hard drives. Can either of
these be used to format the HP hard drive? Does anyone know what brand of
hard drives HP was using 4 or 5 years ago? I have not seen his computer yet,
but I'm trying to get a head start before Sunday. Any help will be most
grateful.
John
 
John said:
Hi,
I'm trying to help a friend with an older HP computer ( 4 or 5 years)
running Windows 98. I must wipe his hard drive clean and reload windows. At
present he cannot boot up. I have a copy of Maxblast 3.0 and whatever
software comes with the new Westeren Ditigal hard drives. Can either of
these be used to format the HP hard drive? Does anyone know what brand of
hard drives HP was using 4 or 5 years ago? I have not seen his computer yet,
but I'm trying to get a head start before Sunday. Any help will be most
grateful.
John
Click to expand...

Just boot from the Win98 CD - you should get the option to format the disk.
 
John said:
Hi,
I'm trying to help a friend with an older HP computer ( 4 or 5 years)
running Windows 98. I must wipe his hard drive clean and reload windows. At
present he cannot boot up. I have a copy of Maxblast 3.0 and whatever
software comes with the new Westeren Ditigal hard drives. Can either of
these be used to format the HP hard drive? Does anyone know what brand of
hard drives HP was using 4 or 5 years ago? I have not seen his computer yet,
but I'm trying to get a head start before Sunday. Any help will be most
grateful.
John
Click to expand...

HP didn't make hard drives. they bought the drive from a major
manufacturer and stuck it in the computer. For completely wiping a drive
(not forensically clean) I like zerofill from www.bootdisk.com
 
I'm trying to help a friend with an older HP computer ( 4 or 5 years)
running Windows 98. I must wipe his hard drive clean and reload windows. At
present he cannot boot up. I have a copy of Maxblast 3.0 and whatever
software comes with the new Westeren Ditigal hard drives. Can either of
these be used to format the HP hard drive? Does anyone know what brand of
hard drives HP was using 4 or 5 years ago? I have not seen his computer yet,
but I'm trying to get a head start before Sunday. Any help will be most
grateful.
Click to expand...

Is this a true data wipeout as to where someone could not recover the data
or do you just need to get the drive clean enough to load software on ?

If you only want to use the drive and don't care if all the sensitive data
is really wiped clean , a simple format from the windows disc will clean the
drive well enough to use.
 
John ,
before you format the hd go to device manager and id the audio , video
and modem drivers . if you can't boot to safe mode you will need to
do some detective work to find your drivers . if he has his recovery
disks you have it made . call him and see what model he has and post
it .
may be able to help with the drivers.
good luck,
terry
 
Hi,
I'm trying to help a friend with an older HP computer ( 4 or 5 years)
running Windows 98. I must wipe his hard drive clean and reload windows. At
present he cannot boot up. I have a copy of Maxblast 3.0 and whatever
software comes with the new Westeren Ditigal hard drives. Can either of
these be used to format the HP hard drive? Does anyone know what brand of
hard drives HP was using 4 or 5 years ago? I have not seen his computer yet,
but I'm trying to get a head start before Sunday. Any help will be most
grateful.
John
Click to expand...

If you want you can use the Win98 CD to format the drive. However,
this wold take a lot longer than if you were to get the manufacturer's
HDD diagnostic utility. MaxBlast etc. Find out his exact model of HP
and then look up the specs on the website. If they say that they use
a Westeren Digital then use the WD stuff, etc. If you don't want to
use up the time then you can just use the Win98 CD.
 
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