How to Format?

[Ellen]

Hi All,

my brother likes to format his Harddrive prior to throwing it away, since it
no longer seems to work correctly.
He already moved everything to his new/other PC.

He is having Windows ME and has no quick restore CD's.

If he goes to the DOS prompt and types FORMAT C. he receives a message he
can't format since the drive is in use or something similar, which makes
sense I guess.

Any advice is welcome!

Thanks so much in advance!
Ellen

[Mike M]

Ellen,

Your brother needs to boot to DOS using a boot floppy/startup floppy after
which he can use the command FORMAT C: however I should point out that
formatting the disk does not remove any of the data on the disk virtually
all of which can be readily recovered with little effort. Instead he
should use a program such as SysInternals free SDelete
(http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/SDelete.html) or Eraser
(http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/) which over writes the data making it more
difficult to recover. See also
http://www.thefreecountry.com/security/securedelete.shtml.
--
Mike Maltby
MS-MVP Windows




Ellen > wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> my brother likes to format his Harddrive prior to throwing it away,
> since it no longer seems to work correctly.
> He already moved everything to his new/other PC.
>
> He is having Windows ME and has no quick restore CD's.
>
> If he goes to the DOS prompt and types FORMAT C. he receives a
> message he can't format since the drive is in use or something
> similar, which makes sense I guess.
>
> Any advice is welcome!
>
> Thanks so much in advance!
> Ellen

[Ellen]

Hi Mike,

thanks I will forward this info to him.
As I recall from my phone calls he is not having a startup/boot floppy
so...he better try your other solutions anyways.

Best regards,
Ellen

"Mike M" > wrote in message
...
> Ellen,
>
> Your brother needs to boot to DOS using a boot floppy/startup floppy after
> which he can use the command FORMAT C: however I should point out that
> formatting the disk does not remove any of the data on the disk virtually
> all of which can be readily recovered with little effort. Instead he
> should use a program such as SysInternals free SDelete
> (http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/SDelete.html) or Eraser
> (http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/) which over writes the data making it more
> difficult to recover. See also
> http://www.thefreecountry.com/security/securedelete.shtml.
> --
> Mike Maltby
> MS-MVP Windows
>
>
>
>
> Ellen > wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> my brother likes to format his Harddrive prior to throwing it away,
>> since it no longer seems to work correctly.
>> He already moved everything to his new/other PC.
>>
>> He is having Windows ME and has no quick restore CD's.
>>
>> If he goes to the DOS prompt and types FORMAT C. he receives a
>> message he can't format since the drive is in use or something
>> similar, which makes sense I guess.
>>
>> Any advice is welcome!
>>
>> Thanks so much in advance!
>> Ellen
>
>

[Mike M]

Ellen,

Your brother can make himself a startup or boot floppy using Add/Remove
Programs | Startup Disk.

If he is unable to create a boot floppy he can download the image of a Win
Me OEM boot disk from www.bootdisk.com. Download to the desktop, not
necessarily that of the Win Me PC, double click to run and follow the
prompts to transfer the image to a floppy. Do NOT copy the downloaded
file to a floppy - that won't make a bootable floppy but instead a floppy
disk containing the downloaded file.


Regards.
--
Mike Maltby
MS-MVP Windows



Ellen > wrote:

> thanks I will forward this info to him.
> As I recall from my phone calls he is not having a startup/boot floppy
> so...he better try your other solutions anyways.

[Ellen]

Cool!

Thanks so much!

Have a great weekend!
Ellen


"Mike M" > wrote in message
...
> Ellen,
>
> Your brother can make himself a startup or boot floppy using Add/Remove
> Programs | Startup Disk.
>
> If he is unable to create a boot floppy he can download the image of a Win
> Me OEM boot disk from www.bootdisk.com. Download to the desktop, not
> necessarily that of the Win Me PC, double click to run and follow the
> prompts to transfer the image to a floppy. Do NOT copy the downloaded
> file to a floppy - that won't make a bootable floppy but instead a floppy
> disk containing the downloaded file.
>
>
> Regards.
> --
> Mike Maltby
> MS-MVP Windows
>
>
>
> Ellen > wrote:
>
>> thanks I will forward this info to him.
>> As I recall from my phone calls he is not having a startup/boot floppy
>> so...he better try your other solutions anyways.
>
>