hard drive wipe clean

[John Baiamonte]

Hi,
I'm trying to help a friend with an older HP computer ( 4 or 5 years)
running Windows 98. I must wipe his hard drive clean and reload windows. At
present he cannot boot up. I have a copy of Maxblast 3.0 and whatever
software comes with the new Westeren Ditigal hard drives. Can either of
these be used to format the HP hard drive? Does anyone know what brand of
hard drives HP was using 4 or 5 years ago? I have not seen his computer yet,
but I'm trying to get a head start before Sunday. Any help will be most
grateful.
John

[Ben Myers]

You need to reformat the hard drive, not necessarily scrub it clean to meet US
Government high(?) security standards. If the computer will boot from the
Windows 98 CD, boot it to the A: prompt and run the DOS mode FORMAT command,
e.g. FORMAT C: . Otherwise, go to www.bootdisk.com , download the image for the
right version of Windows 98 (first or second edition) to match the Windows CD,
prepare a bootable Win 98 floppy, boot from it and (you guessed it!) run the DOS
mode FORMAT command, e.g. FORMAT C:

If your friend has the HP restore CD for Windows 98, best to create the floppy
as above, format the drive, then restore... Ben Myers

On Fri, 06 Feb 2004 19:48:06 GMT, "John Baiamonte" <donotrespond@all.com> wrote:
Hi, I'm trying to help a friend with an older HP computer ( 4 or 5 years)running Windows 98. I must wipe his hard drive clean and reload windows. Atpresent he cannot boot up. I have a copy of Maxblast 3.0 and whateversoftware comes with the new Westeren Ditigal hard drives. Can either ofthese be used to format the HP hard drive? Does anyone know what brand ofhard drives HP was using 4 or 5 years ago? I have not seen his computer yet,but I'm trying to get a head start before Sunday. Any help will be mostgrateful. John