reformat and erase/wipe hard drive

Hi friends,

I'm about to make a donation or to throw my old Dell desktop that is running Windows XP, sp3 (what that is the possibility arises first ).  I'm sorry that I don't remember the name of the model (for the moment).  But anyway, what I understand, I need to delete all the data, to protect my private life of anyone who might want to use it after I'm done with it.

The research I've done, looks like I need to uninstall and remove programs, documents, pictures, music, etc., as much as possible and record everything I want to keep a cd drive or usb.  Then to start the delete process, first I have to reformat the hard drive.  After that, I need to "sweep" it.  I guess I wouldn't be surprised of this paradoxical terminology, but it IS annoying.  I'm talking about it wiping of the process which does not remove anything, but rather replaces the disk, at least a few times, to have my most difficult to recover data .

Could someone me directly to the appropriate instructions for reformatting the hard drive please?  Or if there is an article or something about this whole process, which you could link me to, that would be great.

Also, I looked for a program to make wiping.  There are those who are free and more expensive.  I prefer free, unless they are just not worth it.  All of you have recommendations for wiping program?

Actually, come to think of it, I could still be able to use the computer.  Once I refortmat hard drive, isn't that kind of start over with a clean slate as?  If I couldn't reinstall WinXP right back?   Or I wonder if I could install Win7?  My most recent computer running Win7, so I should have the cd somewhere.  Although this old computer has only 1.24 GB of ram.  So maybe not Win7, but even with XP, I could at least still use the printer that is connected to it.  (The printer and its software are probably too old to run on my newer computer.)  As long as I do not plan to use the internet, there is no security issues with this os to an old/old help... right?

Thanks for your help

Hi Brynn4,

Just to add to the comments of rdunnill, I'm guessing that you can't pay for a new operating system for a computer that is worth less that the license will cost you. My suggestion would be to wipe the drive and perform a new installation of XP if you have the XP Dell installation disk. There are many free utilities that can erase the hard drive safely. You DO NOT need to uninstall anything before formatting the disk.

Otherwise, I would restore the original hard disk image if you do not have a Dell XP disc.

And Yes, I understand that Microsoft ends in favor of XP, but there are many people who use computers for non-critical tasks that would be happy to put more than a few miles on your old desktop computer.

Tags: Dell Drives

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