What is the process for formatting a hard drive so just the operating system is left?
I have an old work computer that was given to me that I would like to use for daily use at home but before I can do that I need to wipe all our work data off the hard drive. I would like to do so without also removing the OS, so I can basically have a clean hard drive with just the OS installed.
The computer is a Dell Inspiron 531 and it is running Windows 7. Do I need the disc for Windows 7 in order to be able to do this or can I go through the BIOS and avoid needing the disc?
Anonymous2012-02-16T08:37:57Z
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Unfortunately, you'll need a disc. Once you get one, pop it in. When the PC boots up, look for an option such as "repair" or "install". This should accomplish what you're asking.
As far as I know, you can't format a hard drive without wiping out everything on it, unless the OS is in a separate partition (so you can format the other partition(s). The other thing you can do is to manually delete all the non-OS folders, then do a "hard delete", which overwrites all the "empty" space with nonsense (e.g., zeros and ones). Then the deleted data will be unrecoverable, and the drive will be ready to be written to.
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