Newbie: Delete partitions and reformat

I am using Windows XP.

I have several partitions on my PC. I wanted to delete all partitions
and wipe the hard disk clean. How do I do that?

On Wed, 6 May 2009 03:33:08 -0700 (PDT), Rich
wrote:


I am using Windows XP.

I have several partitions on my PC. I wanted to delete all partitions
and wipe the hard disk clean. How do I do that?

What do you want to do with the drive next?
If it is a secondary drive, meaning in a system that runs XP
off a different drive, you can go into Disk Management and
do it.

If it is the primary drive, and you wish to pull it to give
to someone else and you want your data gone beyond
retrieval, you'll want to make a bootdisk (floppy, CD, DVD,
USB drive, etc) with some OS or mini-OS that can do it.
Special utilities with their own OS that boot just enough to
to the job include "Boot and Nuke", Google with find it.

If it is the primary drive and you wish to install another
OS, even the same XP, or restore a backup of that OS,
whatever, you can boot the floppy or CD for that OS or
restoration utility and it will allow deleting them, or
wiping and overwriting in the case of a backup & restoration
program.

The old traditional way was make a DOS boot floppy with
FDISK on it. These days it'll still work but it's an
unnecssary step for most purposes, you can proceed without
it to do what you were going to do with the drive next all
in one step.