cleaning out an old computer

C

colobear

New member
I am donating my old Dell, running W98SE, to a nephew (for him this will be a big step up he's running a real antique). I'd like to clean it out thoroughly, get rid of the network password, all my files, and reinstall W98SE plus Office. The computer is an early Pentium. How do I get rid of everything and then do what I think is called a clean install??

Thanks
 
Pattie and Barry, I am not the person to ask, but I will see if I can get my son the computer expert to compose a reply to your needs. He does something related to computers for the University of Washington and seems to have a handle on all aspects of the field.
Dan.
 
Patty & Barry – it has been a long time since I have loaded 98SE on a computer, but it is not that hard.

You need a Boot Disk aka Emergency Start-up Disk. If you do not have one, you can make one.

• Put a 3½ inch floppy disk in the drive and in the Control Panel click on Add Remove Programs, then click on “Startup Disk”
• After the disk has been made, restart the computer. It should boot from the floppy disk. If it does not, you will have to make changes in the BIOS so that it does.
• I don’t remember the exact wording, but in the boot process, you will have the option of starting with CD support/drivers or something like that. You need to make this selection if you are loading windows from a CD.

I just did a search and found the following here. (saves me a lot of typing)

Installing Windows 98 ("clean" Installation)

Before you get started please make sure you have a back-up of any files you wish to keep on your current windows installation. You will also need the following items if you wish to continue with the installation process.

Windows 98 on CD with a valid product ID No.

Windows 98 boot disk (how to make a boot disk www.hildrum.com )

Drivers for the hardware in your PC.

Now that you have all these items we can begin the installation process. Let's go.

1. Insert your floppy disk into the floppy drive and power-up the PC. Whilst the floppy drive is loading the windows 98 setup menu, insert the Win98 CD into your CD-ROM drive.

2. Once your disk has finished loading you will be given three options: (Start Windows 98 setup from CD-ROM or Start computer with CD-ROM support or start computer without CD-ROM support).

3. We will be choosing option 2. This will install your CD-ROM drivers so you can access it later.

4. Once the drivers are installed, at the top of the screen you will be given a list of CD-ROMS with the drive letter next to it. YOU DO NOT NEED TO RE-PARTITION YOUR HARD DISK UNLESS YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH IT

5. You should already be at the a:\ prompt so all you have to do is type in format c: /q. WARNING: THIS WILL FORMAT YOUR HARD DISK and you will lose all files stored on that disk.

6. Once this has completed you will be given the option to name your volume (drive). If you do not wish to name it, then just press enter.

7. You should be back to your a:\ prompt. Now we need to access your CD-ROM drive. Type in the letter assigned to your CD-ROM drive (usually D, E or F) i.e. d:

8. We will assume your CD-ROM drive is D. Type in d:\win98\setup and press enter. You will get a message on screen saying that windows will perform scandisk. Press enter. Follow on screen guide & choose the typical installation. You can personalise it to some extent once Windows is installed.

9. Always ensure after the basic installation is done that you first install the drivers for the motherboard (i.e. PCI Busmastering drivers, IRQ routing and AGP miniport drivers - which are different to the AGP drivers. These are all usually found on the motherboard CD but can also be downloaded from the web. For example if your motherboard has a Via chipset you can use the Via 4-in-1 drivers from the Via site).

10. Now defrag your hard disk before you start installing all the other drivers. It does make a difference.

Further help is available: http://support.microsoft.com
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Dave dlt.gif
 
Pattie and Barry, here is a site that has what you will need to clear your computer's hard drive:

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

You'll want to either create a boot disk (a floppy), or burn the program to a CD - that's assuming this computer can boot from a CD. Once you've done that, restart your computer and the program should boot off the CD or the floppy. Doing the default wipe should be sufficient.
 
There are multiple choices out there depending upon what you mean by cleaning it thoroughly. With a boot disk to reload Windows, you could simply format the hard drive. Takes a long time depending upon size.
This stops the casual user from finding any data. Will not stop the experienced computer user and certainly not an expert.

They say that the drive has to be overwritten at least six times to be absolutely secure. That takes a very long time. The program we used to use to wipe the hard drives on computers loaned to a volunteer group doing taxes that I work with did overwrite six times and it took hours. (The IRS loaners are now encrypted and the process is different.)

So you need to decide how thorough you want to be. Google "wiping hard disks" and you will find a variety of free choices and a lot of advice. The advice from Dan McNally to use Darik's Boot and Nuke (dban) is a very good choice.

Old Dog
 
Thanks everybody. I'm not too worried about him data mining, basically I just want to get my stuff out of the way and give him a clean, uncorrupted system. So, it sounds like I'll need to reformat the hard drive. I've never done that, always too nervous, but this old box is the one to try on.

C-Brats to the rescue...again.
 
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