Wiping removed HDD clean

[hawgwash]

Ok, here we go. Being quite thick about all things geeky but trying to change that, excuse me if I don’t use the proper lingo.

I pulled my SATA HDD with XP and everything else still on it, plopped in a much bigger one and installed Windows 7.

So now that I know the swap was successful, I want to clean up the removed HDD. (Reformat? Wipe clean? What’s the term?) I picked up a SATA to USB connector with a power cord and know the (external) HDD is accessible. It shows up as Local Disk D.

How do I go about taking everything off it with Windows 7 so I can pass it on to someone else?
If I locate it in "My Computer" right click and format will that remove everything, including XP and the partition?

Thanks again for the lessons.

 

[smorizio]

go into disk managemnt.
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/ht/disk-management-windows-7.htm
click on the disk you want to wipe. click on format first then remove the partion. that wipe your old data.
before you wipe it check to see if you have all the data you want.

 

[hawgwash]

go into disk managemnt.
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/ht/disk-management-windows-7.htm
click on the disk you want to wipe. click on format first then remove the partion. that wipe your old data.
before you wipe it check to see if you have all the data you want.

Ok, even though I didn't get what you meant by remove the partition, I went ahead anyway. After the format, there is no "remove the partition" option. What am I missing?