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How do you....

If you have technical questions regarding computers, consoles, or the games we play on them, post them in here.
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The Z
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How do you....

Post by The Z »

.....completely clean out a hard drive even removing Windows?
"It's not whether you get knocked down, it's if you get back up."
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Mr Flibble
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Post by Mr Flibble »

If yoiu just want to clear the contents of the drive then the simplest and fastest method is a quick format. Start the computer in DOS mode, or shut down to an MS-DOS prompt from the 'shut down' menu and type in:

format c: \q \s

and hit enter.

That will clear the drive contents by erasing the file allocation table only and copy the basic system files from memory, so the disk is bootable. If you want to erase the files properly, then remove the \q command. It will take a lot longer, but it's much more thorough.
There are 10 types of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't.
I think I think, therefore I might be.
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The Z
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Post by The Z »

Thanks a ton! :)
"It's not whether you get knocked down, it's if you get back up."
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