I just received a used E machine its younger then the one i am using now. I want to remove everything on the HD and memory and start with a clean CP.
Is this possible ? if so how do you do this ?
Danny5
Get hold of a partition manager program that can be run from a floppy disk (if the computer has a drive), a CD or a USB memory key.
Make a boot floppy disk, CD or USB memory key with the partition manager program on it.
Boot from that media. You may need to fiddle with the BIOS settings to make the computer boot from anything other than the hard disk.
Then in the partition manager, erase all the partitions on the hard disk.
That will logically erase absolutely everything on the hard disk.
You will then need to boot from a Windows installation CD. That will ask if you wish to partition and format the hard disk. Agree to that with whatever configuration you desire.
If the Windows CD has been used before, it may object and claim you're trying to pirate Windows. You might need to contact Microsoft to get a special key to allow you to continue. They tend to be very cooperative about this provided you can explain what's going on.
Physically the old data on the hard disk will still be there, but utterly inaccessible by any normal means. As you fill up the hard disk it will be overwritten but there will be no indication of this happening.
The contents of memory are completely lost every time you switch the computer off.
HTH, John
