JayAr wrote:
Hi to all. After 11 years of using my WIN 98SE finally got me a new
computer. I want to either donate or just give away the old one.
Should I reformat the HD? If so, how's the best way to do it? (never
done it) TIA
J.R.

Jay:

Note that formatting the hard drive will remove the operating system
and make the computer just a collection of hardware parts till an OS
is installed.

That said - While windows is running you cannot format your C: hard
drive, Windows will give you an error message. If you boot from a
floppy or exit to DOS you can then format the HDD. At the command
prompt just type: "format c:" then press "Enter". You will get a
warning along the lines of "Are you sure? All data will be lost".
Answer YES and the format will start. This will take some time but at
the end you will get a format complete message and be given the
opportunity to assign a text "Label" to the drive.

If you are worried about people recovering your data from the
formatted drive (possible with the right tools) you might want to use
a disk wipe program like "CopyWipe":
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php
This can make multiple writes of random data to the entire disk to be
sure the old data is not recoverable. Note that such a wipe can take
several hours on a large drive.

HTH & GL

John


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'' Madness takes its toll - Please have exact change. ''

John Dulak - 40.4913ºN,79.904ºW - http://tinyurl.com/2qs6o6