How do you wipe a hard drive?

[jewishdolphins]

I have 2 OS's on my computer running windows 10 with the same license. I am trying to get rid of my original OS because it's on a hard drive and I want to use my SSD for my OS and my HDD as just extra storage for larger files.

 

When i am on my OS with the SSD, i can't save files into my HDD since it always says I need a permission from admin. As a result, I think I might just wipe out my hard drive completely. 

 

Anyone know how to do this without buying a disk? I don't have an optical drive and all the youtube videos I see appear to be very out dated.

[Prikk]

You should be able to right click your Hard Drive under my Computer and "Format".

[jewishdolphins]

You should be able to right click your Hard Drive under my Computer and "Format".

Can you be more specific as to what part of my question you are answering and what exactly I have to do...That doesn't really help much to me since I'm stupid when it comes to this sort of stuff.

[jewishdolphins]

Can you be more specific as to what part of my question you are answering and what exactly I have to do...That doesn't really help much to me since I'm stupid when it comes to this sort of stuff.

 

You should be able to right click your Hard Drive under my Computer and "Format".

If i go on my OS with the hdd on it, it says: "You cannot format this volume, it contyains the version of windows that you are using. Formatting this volume could cause your  computer to stop working."

[Prikk]

If i go on my OS with the hdd on it, it says: "You cannot format this volume, it contyains the version of windows that you are using. Formatting this volume could cause your  computer to stop working."

 

 Of course. Boot to your SSD and format your HDD. Also make sure you format it to NTFS and not FAT32.

[Ekko]

Format your drive through the Computer, disk management or command prompt. 

 

If the drive has an OS, format the drive through the windows installation when you reach the point where it asks you which drive you would like to install windows on.  Alternatively, I believe there are a lot of 3rd party programs that can format a drive with an OS.

 

You don't need a disk, you can download the OS ( https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/home ) and put it on a bootable drive.

[Ekko]

 Of course. Boot to your SSD and format your HDD. Also make sure you format it to NTFS and not FAT32.

 

Windows will still, unfortunately, not let that happen as I've personally tried it yesterday.

[jewishdolphins]

 Of course. Boot to your SSD and format your HDD. Also make sure you format it to NTFS and not FAT32.

 

Format your drive through the Computer, disk management or command prompt. 

 

If the drive has an OS, format the drive through the windows installation when you reach the point where it asks you which drive you would like to install windows on.  Alternatively, I believe there are a lot of 3rd party programs that can format a drive with an OS.

 

You don't need a disk, you can download the OS ( put it on a bootable drive.

Is the formatting thing to erase all data on the hard drive? 

[Speedbird]

I have 2 OS's on my computer running windows 10 with the same license. I am trying to get rid of my original OS because it's on a hard drive and I want to use my SSD for my OS and my HDD as just extra storage for larger files.

 

When i am on my OS with the SSD, i can't save files into my HDD since it always says I need a permission from admin. As a result, I think I might just wipe out my hard drive completely. 

 

Anyone know how to do this without buying a disk? I don't have an optical drive and all the youtube videos I see appear to be very out dated.

1) Open diskmgmt.msc

2) Find your hard drive

3) Delete all partitons

4) Create a new partition.

 

Done.

[Ekko]

Is the formatting thing to erase all data on the hard drive? 

 

Yes it is.

[jewishdolphins]

Is the formatting thing to erase all data on the hard drive? 

 

 

 Of course. Boot to your SSD and format your HDD. Also make sure you format it to NTFS and not FAT32.

cause i switched to my SSD and tried formatting my hdd and it says "warning formatting will erase ALL data on this disk. To format the disk, click ok. To quit, click CANCEL."

Windows will still, unfortunately, not let that happen as I've personally tried it yesterday.

[Speedbird]

Is the formatting thing to erase all data on the hard drive? 

Yes.The data is still recoverable, but it won't affect usage of the drive.

[jewishdolphins]

1) Open diskmgmt.msc

2) Find your hard drive

3) Delete all partitons

4) Create a new partition.

 

Done.

What would that do? Everyone keeps giving instructions without telling me what it does. Also, I tried looking for disk management on my os with the ssd on it and i cant find it.

[jewishdolphins]

What would that do? Everyone keeps giving instructions without telling me what it does. Also, I tried looking for disk management on my os with the ssd on it and i cant find it.

 

1) Open diskmgmt.msc

2) Find your hard drive

3) Delete all partitons

4) Create a new partition.

 

Done.

Nvm. found it. I have disk management up. Now what exactly would this do? Would it delete my stuff or just affect the usage of my drive?

[Speedbird]

Nvm. found it. I have disk management up. Now what exactly would this do? Would it delete my stuff or just affect the usage of my drive?

This will delete everything on your hard drive, and it will let you put anything you want on it without asking for admin permissions.

[jewishdolphins]

This will delete everything on your hard drive, and it will let you put anything you want on it without asking for admin permissions.

You are a God. The only problem I seem to be having now is actually finding a button on the disk management that allows me to delete all partitions and create a new one...

[jewishdolphins]

This will delete everything on your hard drive, and it will let you put anything you want on it without asking for admin permissions.

Perhaps a more detailed explanation as to where it is, or a screenshot would be super duper helpful man.

[Ekko]

What would that do? Everyone keeps giving instructions without telling me what it does. Also, I tried looking for disk management on my os with the ssd on it and i cant find it.

 

What formatting does is it erases the connection between your drive and its files so it doesn't have to read those files when running and gives the impression that it's gone from your hard drive. The hard drive will treat those data that it doesn't have a connection with as blank slots wherein it would overwrite your new files on that location. You can still recover them because they are still there but they are not connected to the hard drive anymore.

[jewishdolphins]

Is delete all partitions the same thing as delete volume? cause i cant find the stuff that the intel guy was saying^^

[Ekko]

 

Perhaps a more detailed explanation as to where it is, or a screenshot would be super duper helpful man.

 

You cannot format a drive that has an OS on it using windows itself as it would not allow it. But I guess you have to try it to believe it, so right click the partition with the OS on it and choose delete volume.

[Speedbird]

Perhaps a more detailed explanation as to where it is, or a screenshot would be super duper helpful man.

A 'partition' is a block on the hard drive which can be used by software. Deleting them makes the data on the drive unusable, as described by @Ekko. He suggested formatting, which is also a valid option, but I suggest that you delete all partitions in Disk Management, as Windows likes to create small partitions for the bootloader, and deleting them and creating a single, big partition on top of it will make more capacity of the drive available.

[Speedbird]

Is delete all partitions the same thing as delete volume? cause i cant find the stuff that the intel guy was saying^^

Yes, Delete Volume is what you should do.

[jewishdolphins]

Yes, Delete Volume is what you should do.

Okay, so I cleaned everything off like you guys said and I am able to save stuff on the hdd. The only thing is i tried saving a picture on the hard drive (just to test it) and it seemed to save. However, when i went into my hard drive under "this pc", it says "This app can't open. Photos cant be opened using the built-in administrator account. Sign in with a different account and try again."

[Speedbird]

Okay, so I cleaned everything off like you guys said and I am able to save stuff on the hdd. The only thing is i tried saving a picture on the hard drive (just to test it) and it seemed to save. However, when i went into my hard drive under "this pc", it says "This app can't open. Photos cant be opened using the built-in administrator account. Sign in with a different account and try again."

Are you using the built-in Administrator account? Are you in Audit Mode? Are you trying to run Photos as Administrator?

 

Try saving a text file with notepad.

[Ekko]

Okay, so I cleaned everything off like you guys said and I am able to save stuff on the hdd. The only thing is i tried saving a picture on the hard drive (just to test it) and it seemed to save. However, when i went into my hard drive under "this pc", it says "This app can't open. Photos cant be opened using the built-in administrator account. Sign in with a different account and try again."

 

I haven't encountered a problem like that. This maybe a long shot but you could try changing the file's security property to allow your account full access. If that doesn't work, I'm afraid I can't help you anymore.