How do I erase a hard drive

[Bill Rush]

I have an older dell with XP Pro. I can't find the installation disk
(bummer). Anyway, someone has tried to access my online banking account and
I fear they may have access to my hard drive. We have a cable modem. To be
safe I would like to do a full erase of my hard drive and reinstall XP.
1)How do I do that? 2) Will I have to buy a new copy of XP? Thanks

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I have an older dell with XP Pro. I can't find the installation
disk (bummer). Anyway, someone has tried to access my online
banking account and I fear they may have access to my hard drive.
We have a cable modem. To be safe I would like to do a full erase
of my hard drive and reinstall XP. 1)How do I do that? 2) Will I
have to buy a new copy of XP? Thanks

Call Dell -

- Does your system have another way to restore to factory 'as shipped'?
- If not - find out if they can sell you a CD set.

 

[AndrewMead]

:
Anyway, someone has tried to access my online banking account and

How do you know they have tried? Has your bank told you, or have you had an
email from 'your bank' telling you? If so, it is 99.99% probably a
'phishing' email, not from 'your bank, and a hoax - don't reply to it!!

 

[DL]

You can use any win cd to boot from and delete partitions
or www.bootdisk.com
You cannot reinstall though unless you have either the recovery disks or buy
a win cd

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I have an older dell with XP Pro. I can't find the installation disk
(bummer).

If you cannot find the disk, you won't be able to reinstall. Call Dell to
see if you can get replacement install media; expect a charge.

Your alternative will be to purchase a new XP license.

Anyway, someone has tried to access my online banking account and
I fear they may have access to my hard drive.

This leads to two questions. The first is how do you know of this access,
and the second is why do you think they may have access to your drive?

We have a cable modem. To be
safe I would like to do a full erase of my hard drive and reinstall XP.
1)How do I do that? 2) Will I have to buy a new copy of XP? Thanks

Wiping the drive is available at the start of an XP setup. Boot from the
CD you don't have, and follow the prompts to remove teh partition and
recreate it. Format and continue with install.

Of course, you'll have backed up your data first.

Even if you wipe the drive and reinstall, a cable modem should be used with
a router to gain extra levels of security and logging. Routers are not
expensive and are trivial to configure.

HTH
-pk

 

[Xandros]

You can purchase an new OEM copy of XP Home for under $100. It will enable
you to reformat and reinstall XP anew.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

You can purchase an new OEM copy of XP Home for under $100. It will enable
you to reformat and reinstall XP anew.

If Bill buys a new copy of XP Home, I recommend instead that he buys a
Retail Upgrade copy from a reputable discount source. He can buy an
OEM version, but it's usually only slightly cheaper than an upgrade
version, and the small difference in price isn't worth having the
disadvantages of an OEM version, the most severe of which is that once
installed, it can never legally be moved to another computer, even if
the original one dies.

By the way, contrary to what many people think, the requirement to use
an upgrade version is to *own* a previous qualifying version's
installation CD, not to have it installed. When setup doesn't find a
previous qualifying version installed, it will prompt you to insert
its CD as proof of ownership. Just insert the previous version's CD,
and follow the prompts. Everything proceeds quite normally and quite
legitimately.

Most people own a CD of a previous version, but if he doesn't, he can
buy a used copy inexpensively someplace like eBay.