how to earse everything on my hard drive so i can use it in my new pc gaming build?

[niallabbey1992]

hi, im building my gaming pc saturday but to save money i wanted to use my shitty old computers 500gb hard drive (the family pc) its compaq. but im installing windows 7 from fresh and a whole new computer. what do i do to make sure i can just pop it in my new build and start a fresh?

 

[cin19]

You don't need to earse the data before install the OS, you can do it during the installation, go to the BIOS, set the boot order is DVD/CD or USB 1st, HDD is 2nd, saving and exit, install the OS, when you are in this step ( check the link), and you can delete the partition and all the data is gone.
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/operatingsystems/ss/windows-7-clean-install-part-1_11.htm

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

I strongly advise you not to use a old drive as the boot drive of a modern PC
It will be slower than a modern 1TB drive and will have used up a lot of its life especially if older than 3 years

If you really can't afford a new drive, the install process wil detect the old windows installation and you Need to specify you want a fresh installation and format
If previously you had win XP you will need to remove all partitions before continuing the installation
(To make space fore the small boot manager partition before the main c: partition)

Regards
Mike Barnes