How to format C (windows) drive ?

futureal33

futureal33

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Hi all,

Could anyone tell me how I can format my C drive in my PC? It is the drive with Windows on it, and it keeps telling me I cant format it because the drive is currently in use..
I am selling the drive to a friend, so want to wipe it before passing it on..

I know about the way when you re-install windows you get the option to format, but as I am selling the drive is there no other way?

Thanks
 
You would have to take it out and put it in another machine. However formatting does not get rid of the data, it just hides it. Better that you just delete everything you can then trust your mate is a Good mate and won't try and get your data back.
 
You're asking the drive to format itself which it can't do.
Put the drive into an external caddy and format it from there, or place it in another pc and format it from there.
If you have no external caddy or other PC you're stuffed.
 
ChrisH said:
You would have to take it out and put it in another machine. However formatting does not get rid of the data, it just hides it. Better that you just delete everything you can then trust your mate is a Good mate and won't try and get your data back.
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Not true. Deleting doesn't get rid of the data either. You have to overwrite it - and if you're being very cautious - you overwrite several times. There are a number of free utilities to do this. The first I came across was eraser (http://eraser.heidi.ie/) I've not used it, but it should do exactly what you want.
 
Download a copy of 'fdisk' to a floppy and then run it at......oh...errrr....hang on a sec..... :D
 
DemiLion said:
Download a copy of 'fdisk' to a floppy and then run it at......oh...errrr....hang on a sec..... :D
Click to expand...
A bootable USB stick is this generations floppy...
 
You need to boot off something other than C: like a CD or USB stick. Try DBAN or Ultimate Boot CD
 
do you have a windows disk to hand? if you boot from the XP disk for example and go to the recovery console you should be able to format from there.

if its windows 7 you can format at the start of the setup and then quit out.

but as above unless you run an eraser program to overwrite the disk the data will still be recoverable.
 
The only sure way to make sure your data is unrecoverable is to dismantle the drive drill a million or so holes in all of the platters and then smelt them into a paper weight.
 
Keith W said:
The only sure way to make sure your data is unrecoverable is to dismantle the drive drill a million or so holes in all of the platters and then smelt them into a paper weight.
Click to expand...

that might change its resale value as he is looking to sell it :)

I'd use a boot and nuke CD (dban already mentioned above) if you only have the one computer. It's a bootable CD that will erase the hard drive.
 
Keith W said:
The only sure way to make sure your data is unrecoverable is to dismantle the drive drill a million or so holes in all of the platters and then smelt them into a paper weight.
Click to expand...

thats not strictly true, if you use the correct eraser tools then the data should be unrecoverable. google "gutmann" :)

dont believe everything you see on tv and films where they magically reconstruct data from a disk..
 
Arad go read the last part of my statement again, I don't think I said deleting gets rid of it, I did however imply that a Good mate wouldn't go looking for it.
 
neil_g said:
dont believe everything you see on tv and films where they magically reconstruct data from a disk..
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With all due respect I find that rather patronising Neil

Assuming you know everything and that everybody else knows nothing is a bad idea right from the get go
 
with DBAN it overwrites after the format (if i remember rightly) you can select how many times it does this in the menu, if you select the max amount it takes a day to do it depending on the size of the drive.

It alleges that it is unrecoverable by all known methods, how true that actually is is debatable.
 
So, if you can't get rid of the data on a hard drive by formatting it, why is there no bit of kit that allows multiple formatting and then a retrieval option. Surly if you fill up say 100 gigs and then format it, then fill up another 100 gigs and then still be able to get back the first 100 gigs, you realy have a 200 gig hard drive:thinking:
 
Steve T said:
So, if you can't get rid of the data on a hard drive by formatting it, why is there no bit of kit that allows multiple formatting and then a retrieval option. Surly if you fill up say 100 gigs and then format it, then fill up another 100 gigs and then still be able to get back the first 100 gigs, you realy have a 200 gig hard drive:thinking:
Click to expand...

in laymans terms.. when you delete or format the data on the drive doesnt get removed, it just gets flagged as no longer there so the disk space can be reused. once that space is reused then technically the data is gone to most people.

with advanced equipment it may be possible to get that data back again, plus also data on a hard drive is often fragmented across the drive so that data may not be overwritten straight away etc.

it wouldnt be possible to write an amount of data twice to the same disk once over the top of the other and recover it on a consumer device.
 
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