Clearing my hard drive...whats involved.

[magpienja]

Hi all,

My daughter was going to bin her old laptop so I asked her for it, on powering it up I can see why she would want to bin it...its painfully slow,

I have never owned a laptop but could see a use for it but not how it performs at present,

Not sure how old it is but its at least 5 years old and runs Vista,

I have often heard guys say they are going to clean there HD and start a fresh...I wonder whats involved...I don't have an installation Vista disc...is it just a case of formating the HD or will that also wipe off the operating system.

Nick.

[mixture]

magpienja,

I have often heard guys say they are going to clean there HD and start a fresh...I wonder whats involved...I don't have an installation Vista disc...is it just a case of formating the HD or will that also wipe off the operating system.

If you're not wiping the operating system, then you're not starting fresh. Simple as.

Wiping and re-installing is always best, its terribly easy to spend hours, days or weeks of your life trying to clean up a drive that's full of 10 years worth of :mad:. Plus you're never going to be able to properly clean up the backend stuff (registry stuff and other scraps left behind by all the software and other stuff you've messed around with over the years).

If you are re-using a computer, then yes... you format the drive and then install the OS of your choice.

If you are selling or scrapping the computer, my preference is just to remove the hard drive and dispose of the computer ex-drive. Drives are cheap as chips these days, so the new owner can't complain about having to buy one.

[magpienja]

But as I dont have an o/s to install...will formating just wipe the memory or the o/s as well???

[rjtjrt]

Magpienja
I am no computer expert, but the answer to your question is if you format the hard drive (assuming the laptop has only one hard drive) then it will wipe the operating system as well as all else. In that case you will need to reinstall an operating system.

[mixture]

But as I dont have an o/s to install...will formating just wipe the memory or the o/s as well???

A format does what it says on the tin (and as I hinted above), it wipes an entire drive.

As I said above, please don't waste your time trying to clean up Windows. You'll waste much of your life and probably get nowhere in the end. Believe me, I've done it once or twice as a task in the historic past for people when I was being paid by the hour to do it. Its a thankless, frustrating task and you'll never really properly clean out the nooks and crannies of Windows. There is a reason why a wipe and re-install is an oft recommended solution to many ailments.

If you value your time at all and are insistent on re-using the laptop, just go buy a copy of Windows 8 (or if you don't want to spend money, perhaps try contacting the laptop manufacturer and see if they can send you a Vista disk). Vista was a pretty useless operating system anyway.

[Mac the Knife]

Here's a hint

Main Page - Linux Mint (http://www.linuxmint.com/)

:ok:

[Saab Dastard]

I would second a format and install - in your position I'd install Win 7. You can buy an upgrade copy of Win 7 (your Vista OS qualifies) quite reasonably now.

SD

[dazdaz1]

About £66.00 inc SP1 on disc. W7 32 bit Home Premium

[magpienja]

Mmmm I see thank guys....think the best bet for it is the bin...I dont think its worth the cost of a Win 7 disc.

Nick.

[ShyTorque]

Format the HD first anyway, before throwing it away. You can be extra sure of the info on it not being recovered and falling into the wrong hands if you then manually format it with a digital implement.

I've used a four pound one in the past.

[dazdaz1]

I hope your daughter does not expect you buying a new lappy for her? Jezz, £66 against a new lappy £200-300-400?

[magpienja]

No she has a new one already,

Good advice re formating before bining.

[dazdaz1]

Shy...... h/d drives, take them out and put them on a gas ring for five minutes, I'm back in Thailand now;)

[Mac the Knife]

What a waste!

:suspect:

[ShyTorque]

Gas ring? We're all electric.. :p

[Loose rivets]

I'll get to the point, eventually.

My pal's Vista HP in the UK had all the photos she'd ever taken all on that one disc. She was afraid to CClean it just in case she lost her work. The machine eventually ground to a stop, I don't know if it was just over burdened with cr@p, or another glitch appeared on the hard drive, but it sat there with the little circle spinning for up to two hours. (I know :rolleyes: ) even dropping it on the table didn't make it go. (really)

She's nice, but she's Australian. :p

I set about getting the photos off, but I didn't want to risk a recover, since in the past I've had that procedure reset the partitions with the loss of all data - so I did it the hard way with Ubuntu. When I'd got them off, I simply tried my Vista recover disc and windows repaired the OS after about 6- 7 minutes.

Now, CCleaner made it run reasonably well. Quite a nice standby computer with super camera and posh sound. Shame to throw it away.

My similar age Vaio is dual boot, and I can make dinner while it settles down on Vista, but it's 3 gigs serves W7 well - a practical machine. Even two gigs will work reasonably well. on 7.