Wiping the Drive???-- and complete reload of XP???

[Bill86]

DBAN!

Use DBAN to wipe.

Free and easy.

If you have any questions I'm sure I can answer them I've reloaded XP at least 250 times.

I agree if you have the specs, go Windows 7. It's much better than XP.

[Savor the Stick]

Ouch my head!
I didn't get to read any of the stuff after Gerard responded. Just scanned it.

I do plan on upgrading my OP system in when WIN 8 comes out. I am just interested in reformatting the HD, and cleaning stuff up for the time being.
I will research the different ideas...but the low level format will probably be where I start.

I have a Mid tower almost built; just lacking a CPU, motherboard, Graphics card, and monitor....it's taking awhile. I'm pretty good with the hardware side of stuff, but have always had difficulty with software/programing.

Keep the ideas coming, we always talk by phone or Skype....

[mosesbotbol]

Originally Posted by Savor the Stick

[b][color=DarkGreen]I have a Mid tower almost built; just lacking a CPU, motherboard, Graphics card, and monitor....it's taking awhile.

So, you have a stick of RAM, a fan and that's it?

One thing you'll want to do is max out the RAM on the motherboard. Whatever you think is excessive now, won't be in 4 years. At that 4 year mark, you PC will at least be decent since it will be average by then.

[Savor the Stick]

Originally Posted by mosesbotbol

So, you have a stick of RAM, a fan and that's it?

One thing you'll want to do is max out the RAM on the motherboard. Whatever you think is excessive now, won't be in 4 years. At that 4 year mark, you PC will at least be decent since it will be average by then.

I have the tower case, HD, power supply, ram 16 gb, case fans (6), fan controller, and an aftermarket cpu cooler.

[Savor the Stick]

Originally Posted by BlindedByScience

....we have it in the labs here and the "in house" reviews here are very mixed. I've seen at least one blog call it "...the new Vista...".

Not for me - W7-64 is just too good.....

Edited to add - you can get a slug of great utilities on a bootable CD for free (Including DBAN). Having all this stuff on a bootable CD is way, way convenient when you're working on PC's. Visit:

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

...download the ISO, burn a CD. I use this all the time, here in the lab, and at home when I'm building or working on PC's

Originally Posted by mosesbotbol

Partition is like slicing the harddrive into pie pieces. Instead of just having a c: drive, you'll have an additional letter like d: or f:. The advantage is that if you screw up your PC, it tends to stick to just the partition. If you blow away c:, you still have a copy of your machine on the other partition.

Most PC manufacturers have a small partition on their drive when you buy a computer. Partitioning is not as popular as it was, but it's still a necessary if you want to build you computer "the right way". There are plenty of good web sites that can walk you through this.

As for how big to make the 2nd partition, consider doing 10% of the total drive space.

As how to do this, there are several ways. If you are formatting the disk, fdisk is the easiest way to create a partition. Diskpart can create a partition as well.

Thanks for the lesson.