Wiping an HDD without disk drive or flash drive?

[ShafeDaddyFresh]

My OS is corrupted, and it kinda sucks.

I can't boot into Windows at all. I went from "laptop" to "paperweight" in the span of one accidental shutdown. I've been trying to fix it for weeks, to no avail. I'm almost positive the only way to go is to get the HDD totally nuked and reinstall an OS on it. The only catch is, my laptop has no disk drive and refuses to boot anything from another drive (I went into BIOS and changed boot priority, but Windows still thinks it needs to help boot anything from there, so it subsequently crashes and burns again)

Is there a way to wipe without any additional software or am I going to have to throw in the towel?

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... what method does your Laptop maker suggest?

 

[WyomingKnott]

Well, you can't do a Windows install unless the laptop will boot from something external, like a USB DVD reader or a USB stick. So let's work on getting you to boot from one of those.

Once you can boot from one of those, you can either nuke the drive with something like Parted Magic or just do a fresh install.

But first, some questions. Is it the HDD that failed, or did you corrupt the OS? No point re-installing to a bad HDD that's just going to fail again. Do you need to recover the files that are on the drive? If so, it's better to attach it to another machine first and get the files before you wipe them all!

 

[ShafeDaddyFresh]

I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. I bought it used from B&H Photography's website so, with lack of warranty, contacting Asus didn't even occur to me. I will definitely try getting in touch with them to see if they can offer any assistance. I should have thought of that before coming here

 

[ShafeDaddyFresh]

Well, you can't do a Windows install unless the laptop will boot from something external, like a USB DVD reader or a USB stick. So let's work on getting you to boot from one of those.

Once you can boot from one of those, you can either nuke the drive with something like Parted Magic or just do a fresh install.

But first, some questions. Is it the HDD that failed, or did you corrupt the OS? No point re-installing to a bad HDD that's just going to fail again. Do you need to recover the files that are on the drive? If so, it's better to attach it to another machine first and get the files before you wipe them all!

Sorry for the lack of clarity! The OS is corrupted, or so I believe. It shut off after being left unplugged for too long (I was travelling) and I now keep getting an Automatic Repair loop. Recovering the data would be nice, but at this point it's as if it's gone already, so losing it wouldn't be the end of the world. I've contemplated using another machine to fix it, but I'm not entirely confident in my own ability to remove said HDD, nor do I have another machine to use. I inquired about a repair estimate at my local repair shop, which cited me around $70 to nuke it and install another OS which, as a college student, is about a month's worth of ramen and pizza rolls