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eve
03-29-07, 04:17 AM
Hi

I'm trying to erase the contents of the harddrive with a startup disk and by running

format c:

But it only gives me bad command or file name.

I've also ran command and run the command format c: form there but it gives this message

"Volume is used by another process. Volume must be dimounted first." I then have the option of forcing the dimount but then it says "cannot lock the drive. Volume is still in use."


Oh, the computers run XP, has no CD-ROM and I don't want anything on the computer, I just want to take the current OS off.

Can anyone help please?
OWA
03-29-07, 11:01 AM
If you're going to give the computer away or dispose of it, I'd just take the hard drive out. A lot of times, things can still be recovered even if you format the drive.
SlieTheSecond
03-29-07, 11:40 AM
What startup disk are you using?

Just get a Dos bootable and you should have no problems. Or the windows install disk can format too.

But like OWA said. Even after multiple formats, some data is still recoverable.

The only 100% sure way to make sure nothing ever comes off the hard drive is to open the hard drive up and destroy the platters.
Greeno
03-29-07, 01:19 PM
I agree with the guys, you can go over to http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm I'd probably recommend the WinME disk (No Ramdrive) if you're just giving your computer to someone you know well (family or whatever) or you've not really used your PC for much in the way of banking, donkey porn and the like... just boot to the disk and type :-

A:\>fdisk [Enter]

and chances are your partition is not set to active, either way... you want to delete it... if it's not FAT32 or FAT16 (option 1) choose option 3.

Delete the partition, reboot and when you re-install Windows, you can just do a full format from there.

But bewarned, it DOES NOT clear off all of your data and someone running something like R-Studio will be able to get it all back with a bit of know how.

Hard drives are cheap now, just get them to buy I new one.

Cheers.

EDIT: All that being said, if you just want to re-install Windows... just boot to the CD (or DVD) and remove the partition from there "D" in Windows XP, recreate a partition and away you go.