Re-format Win 98 hard drive

[Sue]

Hi,
My client wants to donate an old Win 98 computer system to
a school. He doesn't want the possibility of ANY of his old
files to be accessed. I don't believe he cares about
providing them with any usable opperating system left on
the computer. I have searched my old Win 98 & Win 95
manuals for re-formating hard drives and cannot find the
correct key sequences. I know he will have to manually
remove his old files - OR - can he just use a keystroke
sequence to all-at-once delete all the files on the hard
drive? He can follow SOME instructions so the answer should
be pretty simple if possible. I will not be there to help
him transfer files. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Sue

[philo]

"Sue" > wrote in message
...
> Hi,
> My client wants to donate an old Win 98 computer system to
> a school. He doesn't want the possibility of ANY of his old
> files to be accessed. I don't believe he cares about
> providing them with any usable opperating system left on
> the computer. I have searched my old Win 98 & Win 95
> manuals for re-formating hard drives and cannot find the
> correct key sequences. I know he will have to manually
> remove his old files - OR - can he just use a keystroke
> sequence to all-at-once delete all the files on the hard
> drive? He can follow SOME instructions so the answer should
> be pretty simple if possible. I will not be there to help
> him transfer files. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Sue


all he needs do do is use a bootdisk
and once booted up...issue the command format C:


note: though it's not terribly likely, someone with the right computer
skills
could unformat the drive...so it may not be a bad idea to reload windows
on the machine

[Greg]

If he wants a more secure format have him go to
http://www.killdisk.com/ and download the free
demo. It should make recovery of all info on the
HD impossably all he needs to do is download then
click on the file and it will load to a floppy.
Reboot with that floppy and follow the instructions.
Hope this helps.
>-----Original Message-----
>Hi,
>My client wants to donate an old Win 98 computer system to
>a school. He doesn't want the possibility of ANY of his
old
>files to be accessed. I don't believe he cares about
>providing them with any usable opperating system left on
>the computer. I have searched my old Win 98 & Win 95
>manuals for re-formating hard drives and cannot find the
>correct key sequences. I know he will have to manually
>remove his old files - OR - can he just use a keystroke
>sequence to all-at-once delete all the files on the hard
>drive? He can follow SOME instructions so the answer
should
>be pretty simple if possible. I will not be there to help
>him transfer files. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Sue
>.
>

[Lil' Dave]

Since you emphasize the word "any" by capitalizing, the only sure fire way
is to physically shred the entire hard drive platter(s), then smelt the
shreds.
There are ways to make it extremely difficult to assemble data from a hard
drive. Most don't have the hardware, a clean room, and time to assemble
data cleaned using these methods.
"Sue" > wrote in message
...
> Hi,
> My client wants to donate an old Win 98 computer system to
> a school. He doesn't want the possibility of ANY of his old
> files to be accessed. I don't believe he cares about
> providing them with any usable opperating system left on
> the computer. I have searched my old Win 98 & Win 95
> manuals for re-formating hard drives and cannot find the
> correct key sequences. I know he will have to manually
> remove his old files - OR - can he just use a keystroke
> sequence to all-at-once delete all the files on the hard
> drive? He can follow SOME instructions so the answer should
> be pretty simple if possible. I will not be there to help
> him transfer files. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Sue