How to Wipe a Hard Drive on Windows XP

[Loismustdie]

I need to know how to completely wipe my Hard Drive on a Windows XP.

There is a virus that will not get off no matter what I do, I have run all antivirus and antispyware devices there are and I would much rather wipe my HDD right now. So anyone know anything I could do.

 

[FredGarvin]

http://www.cyberwalker.com/faqs/reinstall-reformat-winxp/reformat-FAT32-XP.html

The same site has a page if your system is NTFS.

 

[russ_watters]

Put your windows cd in the drive, boot to it, and run a full re-install, reformatting the drive.

 

[Anttech]

If it is "another" HD, ie you have 2 HD's one with XP loaded and another that has this Virus, you just need to do fdisk from CMD

 

[Loismustdie]

If it is "another" HD, ie you have 2 HD's one with XP loaded and another that has this Virus, you just need to do fdisk from CMD

Do you have any links that can tell me how to run the Fdisk on the CMD? If so that would be great.

 

[russ_watters]

I wouldn't bother doing fdisk from cmd - you need to reinstall windows anyway, so you may as well do it from the menus on the cd.

 

[ranger]

Besides, if you have two hard drives, its possible that the virus may have spread.

 

[Stevedye56]

I think there's a program called HD Wipe or something like that. I just googled hard drive erasers or something like that. Id go with Russ though, just reinstall everything.

 

[-Job-]

The easiest way to format is using a Windows cd. You put it in, then on the menu to select the partition in which to install you delete all partitions. On this same menu you create a brand new partition, format it with NTFS and the installation resumes.

By the way, is this a virus or spyware issue?

 

[Anttech]

I wouldn't bother doing fdisk from cmd - you need to reinstall windows anyway, so you may as well do it from the menus on the cd.

As I said, if you have 2 HD's one with XP loaded and another that doesnt, and your problem is located on the other HD, you do NOT need to reload windows

 

[Anttech]

Besides, if you have two hard drives, its possible that the virus may have spread.

Anything is possible.

Usually Virus, more so Trojan Horses or good ones that are useful to the person who put them there, won't harm the OS files. A Virus doesn't usually kill its host, it uses its host to infect or spread to another system. It uses the Host to allow the person who put it there to use that Host to do something else like DDOS a target, or SMTP spam other Hosts.

 

[russ_watters]

The viruses that are most difficult to eradicate are difficult to eradicate because they infect the OS directly. Besides - the way the op is worded (and based on his experience level), I think it is unlikely he has 2 hard drives.

 

[Loismustdie]

I don't have two HDDs but I do need to completely wipe one.

The virus has completely screwed up my computer. The virus has made the computer prompt me to press a button at start saying that a serious crash may occur and that I want to back up the files. Then the OS crashes about every 8 hours or so. I think that I can fix it by reinstalling the OS or maybe even put a new one on it.

There is one problem though, I can't seem to find the OS's reinstall disk and I have to find that I suppose.