Best way to wipe a computer clean and start new
 

Any new software been released as of late to do it better or faster?

I've gotta clean one of my babies, she's deathly ill.

Also, is there a tool to copy the needed drivers so I don't have to hunt them down again? Webcam, scanner, printer and shit like that?

Thanks.

to wipe it clean nuke does it well.

pop in your windows CD, reboot, make sure your bios is set to boot from CDRom. When the install starts, make sure you remove all partitions, make new partitions, and format the drive. It should do the rest from there.

i usually use Bounty, thicker plies, you use 1 sheet compared to the regular brands 5 sheets. :2 cents:

Dunno the answer - but I'll be going through the same thing shortly with a new Acer laptop. Gotta wipe it clean before taking it in to have Vista killed and XP installed.

take the drive out. get airforce grade magnet and hold it over the drive, by about 5" distance, move around the space as if you were literally wiping the whole drive.

thats step one, drive is completely gone, no recover possible.

step two, run to store buy huge new drive, surely less then $200 and better than original.

step three, reinstall :)

I hear a 12 gauge slug works wonders

real ballers just buy a whole new rig

My geekbot says:

<#format c:#>

Do MBR viruses still exist? If so, formatting, and possibly even repartitioning, won't get rid of them.

Find a utility which can do a "zero fill" on your drive. This will write blanks to every sector, including the MBR. Obviously it will obliterate your OS so you'll need to boot from a CD or another drive to run the function.

are you interested in forensically destroying the data? and how badly do you need it to be completely gone? If you need it really gone - download any wipe software (doesn't really matter which) - hook the drive up as a slave in another PC -run the wipe - fill the harddrive completely with huge files - delete the files - repeat 7 times - run the wipe program again - repeat all this as many times as your patience and time can tolerate - reinstall windows.

or (assuming a Windows system) just do what supzdotcom said - that works perfectly (barring a pressing need to make 'bad data' go poof)

above all don't forget your backup first!!!!! <---- :)

the real question here is the drivers - only way to do this is to ID your hardware first and download the drivers before you start - you cant get a 'backup' of these from the existing system like that.

control panel/system manegement tool can tell you what drivers you should look for

good luck

You should image your drive after re-installation and all drivers added and everything is working perfectly... then you wont need to go through this BS.. just reset your computer back to the image and your off and running..

what he said too :) - sage advice and a big timesaver for the future

format c:

Dwb:

Get Acronis Trueimage!

It saves my ass time after time.