Need help formatting a Hard Drive

[bunkerking09 10+ year member]

A guy at my work gave me his computer and wants me to format his hard drive for him. It's an ancient Dell Latitude Laptop. If anyone can help or point me in the right direction that would be sweet.

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[bubbagumper6 5,000+ posts]

A guy at my work gave me his computer and wants me to format his hard drive for him. It's an ancient Dell Latitude Laptop. If anyone can help or point me in the right direction that would be sweet.

Does he just want you to format it or format it and re-install windows?

Are you doing work for him or did he literally give you the laptop (like it's yours now)?

 

[bunkerking09 10+ year member]

Does he just want you to format it or format it and re-install windows?
Are you doing work for him or did he literally give you the laptop (like it's yours now)?

I just want to wipe the hard drive minus windows XP, I don't want to hassle re-installing it.

And it's still his, he's an older guy thats not very computer savvy so i figured I could figure out how to do it.

 

[bubbagumper6 5,000+ posts]

I just want to wipe the hard drive minus windows XP, I don't want to hassle re-installing it.
And it's still his, he's an older guy thats not very computer savvy so i figured I could figure out how to do it.

Well you can't just wipe everything but the OS. If you truly want to format it, you'll have to reinstall the OS.

And that's what I was afraid of, you shouldn't be offering to help others with their computer problems if you don't know what your doing...

 

[bunkerking09 10+ year member]

but i did it on my previous dell. i wiped the memory without messing with the OS. but that was Vista.

 

[bigaudiofanati2 10+ year member]

Na you need to reinstall the OS if you want to format it. Unless you have a external laptop hard drive enclosure that you can use. In that case take the hard drive out put it in the enclosure plug it into another computer open my computer right click the hard drive and format. But wait,,, if you can not do a format than I would not recommend taking a laptop apart. Give it back to him or insert the OS disk and reinstall windows.

 

[Ken448 10+ year member]

if you are not SURE what you are doing then why did you agree to do this? Seems like you are about to jump into a big black hole to me. IMO, the only way to format a drive is to format the whole thing, not just pick and choose. Maybe you did yours that way because windows was actually on a separate drive or partition. MAkes me curious... Whats on his hard drive he wants gone ...... hmmmmmmmm

 

[bigaudiofanati2 10+ year member]

Do you understand what we are saying to you?

 

[bubbagumper6 5,000+ posts]

Like I said initially, if you don't know what your doing, don't attempt anything...

 

[tEh ShOcKeR]

Pull out the battery for 43 seconds and then plug it back in. You're welcome.

 

[blazeplacid 10+ year member]

restart

at boot screen hit F10 untill you get another menu

go from there