Formatting HDD

[sprento]

Back in the good ole' Win98 days, there was a (pre install) command line in DOS that totally wiped your hard drive ('format /q c:' I think)

Is there anything similar to this nowadays for wiping HDD's before installing Vista ? I know you can select an option that wipes the drive and puts all the files into a folder called 'Win.old', which afik, is an effort to delete.

There is nothing more relaxing than having a clear head to work with when installing Windows, so please, please help.

Cheers.

 

[Freak]

Arent you able to format it like you do when installing winxp?

 

[monkey7]

There's a format tool in the vista setup if you mean that? When selecting the partition to install on there's a button labeled something like 'advanced' which gives you the options to delete and make partitions in different filesystems.

And of course in the shiney but useless Vista style -.- Who the hell needs that when installing an OS!

 

[sprento]

Arent you able to format it like you do when installing winxp?

Yes, it's the way Monkey is talking about.

There's a format tool in the vista setup if you mean that? When selecting the partition to install on there's a button labeled something like 'advanced' which gives you the options to delete and make partitions in different filesystems.

And of course in the shiney but useless Vista style -.- Who the hell needs that when installing an OS!

I know you can do that, but it keeps your progrmas and files in folders in C:, and ultimately keeps registries. I was looking for a dos command that I could execute with a dos disc before startup - something that would wipe the whole drive totally kaput !

 

[monkey7]

Did you try completely removing all partitions first and then formatting into a new partition?

 

[sprento]

Did you try completely removing all partitions first and then formatting into a new partition?

I haven't tried that yet, ever since magnetising my ipod, I have no other storage hardware to transfer the files to. Need at least 150GB and I'm skint at the moment so it looks like I'm stuck.