Format Hard Drive & Re-Install XP Home

[disptchr]

Donating one of my computers to a shelter. Would like to format my hard drive to remove all my info and then re-install XP Home. Can someone please give me step by step instructions or tell me where I can find them. Did a search on it and found lots of sites with info but I trust this one.

[ktkendall]

Just boot the PC from the Xp CD and you can do that which you desire to do to that PC.

[rjfvillarosa]

I think I would zero fill the hard drive before donating the computer to anyone, you can use the hard drive manufacturers test utility to check the drive for any possible faults and then do a low level format, and then fill the drive with zero's, removing any possibility of any of your data ever being recovered.

[ktkendall]

It sounds like he wants to donate the PC with the OS on it. A zero fill is not a bad idea, you can download a freebie, they usually work via boot floppy, then boot from the XP cdrom and the drive will need partitioned, formatted then windows can be loaded fresh. The zero fill will pretty much keep even the FBI or CIA from ever recovering any of your old data on that drive that hasn't been overwritten yet. A format and fresh install of windows will generally suffice though, unless they are some serious computer hackers and have the necesary equipment and you have had some very sensitive/personal data on there, but being a shelter that will probably be most grateful for your donation I seriously doubt you really have to be that concerned about overwriting that drive to the point that the CIA could not even recover any old data off of it..

[rjfvillarosa]

Disp, you can run set up from your XP cd and when prompted you can select to do a format and reinstall. the quickest way in my opinion is to go into the bios and change the boot order so that it reads the cdrom first then just put the XP cd in the player and reboot the machine. In set up you will be prompted to format the hard drive by each existing partition, just say yes to each format option and sit back and watch.