Cleaning my hard drive(s)

[Demokrit]

Hello Guys,

I just ordered my new PC and all that jazz with a 250gb ssd and i plan on using my old 1TB drives for storage.

The problem is that they both have an OS on them and they are full of crap.

Is there an easy way to clean them ? Remove all the data and stuff ?

[OveratedCPU]

An Mechanical Drive cannot be cleaned , you can delete the files but the data remains..

[OveratedCPU]

go to your start menu and type "diskmgmt.msc"

[OveratedCPU]

Select your drive that you want to create and DELETE the drive

[8enjicraf2]

An Mechanical Drive cannot be cleaned , you can delete the files but the data remains..

You can get software that deletes everything off the drive, then fills it up with empty files, then deletes them again. Dont know what its called tho

[OveratedCPU]

you will now have a partition with no drive , click on it to create a new partition

[SPAS-ID]

http://www.wikihow.com/Format-a-Hard-Drive

[Naeaes]

Reformat the drive. 

 

Launch the OS on the SSD,

open 'Disk Management'

right click and remove each partition on the old HDD

right click and create new partition(s)

Format the new partition(s).

 

You can format partitions in File Explorer too but you cannot remove them. Which is a crucial part. Your old drive has an obsolete MBR (200 megabytes or so at the beginning of the drive) which can cause serious issues during booting and even on a good day serves only to slow stuff down.

[OveratedCPU]

You can get software that deletes everything off the drive, then fills it up with empty files, then deletes them again. Dont know what its called tho

well true but it slows up your mechanical drive

[Demokrit]

go to your start menu and type "diskmgmt.msc"

So i have to plug in the Hard drvies into my current pc and do it that way ? 

And what do you mean with the Data remains ? 

They are both around 500GB so i can only use the other 500GB left ?

I dont care if the Data is somehow restorable i care about the Space i will be able to use in my future rig

[SPAS-ID]

you will now have a partition with no drive , click on it to create a new partition

please type everything on one post, and dont do posts count boost

[Dobbsjr]

go to your start menu and type "diskmgmt.msc"

They edit buttons exist you know. No need to make two posts .

 

@Demokrit use a formatting program 

[Samfisher]

You can get software that deletes everything off the drive, then fills it up with empty files, then deletes them again. Dont know what its called tho

It's called zero filling.  It spams the HDD with 0's in binary rendering all data unrecognizable, then does it multiple times so that the process is irreversible.  There are many free tools that do this for you easily.

[Dobbsjr]

An Mechanical Drive cannot be cleaned , you can delete the files but the data remains..

 

 

go to your start menu and type "diskmgmt.msc"

 

 

Select your drive that you want to create and DELETE the drive

 

 

you will now have a partition with no drive , click on it to create a new partition

Can this be classified as spam?

[Naeaes]

An Mechanical Drive cannot be cleaned , you can delete the files but the data remains..

A mecnahincal drive can easily be cleaned. It just takes time.

It's possible to re-write eatch bit with all ones first, then all zeroes, then all random and then only random bits here and there with randomly either one or zero. Repeating that a few dozen times will make a mechanical drive unrecoverable to even the most sophisticated laboratory techniques. Doing it just once will render it unrecoverable to the drive itself.

[Demokrit]

Reformat the drive. 

 

Launch the OS on the SSD,

open 'Disk Management'

right click and remove each partition on the old HDD

right click and create new partition(s)

Format the new partition(s).

 

You can format partitions in File Explorer too but you cannot remove them. Which is a crucial part. Your old drive has an obsolete MBR (200 megabytes or so at the beginning of the drive) which can cause serious issues during booting and even on a good day serves only to slow stuff down.

OK wait,

Can i plug all 3 Drives (2HDD's wich are used and the 1 new SSD) in the System install the OS on the SSD and format them on my new PC ? 

Or will i run into problems because there are 3 Different Operating Systems installed on the drives ?

[Naeaes]

well true but it slows up your mechanical drive

Where are you getting this? Wiping a drive is simple overwriting. It doesn't make the drive run slower any more than saving data on it does. Removing data from the drive here and there and saving new data in those free spots serves to fragment the data. Fragmented data takes longer to read since it's scattered all over the drive physically. Which makes data transfer from the drive slower And how do you fix this? De-fragment it or better yet, wipe and reformat the drive. A freshly wiped drive is as fast as a mechanical drive can ever be. From there on fragmentation accumulates until it's wiped again.

[zyntaxable]

OK wait,

Can i plug all 3 Drives (2HDD's wich are used and the 1 new SSD) in the System install the OS on the SSD and format them on my new PC ? 

Or will i run into problems because there are 3 Different Operating Systems installed on the drives ?

You can install the OS on the SSD, then you launch your pc from the SSD. You'll see multiple drives in the "This PC" menu, and you can right click on them and select "Format". Now you'll have an SSD with your OS on it, and the two used HDD's which are now empty.

[Naeaes]

OK wait,

Can i plug all 3 Drives (2HDD's wich are used and the 1 new SSD) in the System install the OS on the SSD and format them on my new PC ? 

Or will i run into problems because there are 3 Different Operating Systems installed on the drives ?

Oh! To ensure you get the fresh MBR on the SSD, don't plug in the old drives yet. Install the OS with SSD only. Then after that, you can plug them in before booting the PC if you force it to boot from the SSD in BIOS. Otherwise you can keep them unplugged until you're in your new Windows and plug them in after that. THis only works if you have AHCI enabled which you definitely should since it's an SSD you're installing the OS on.

[Rayhaan Jiwani]

Bro, just download CCleaner froom piriform.com

[Demokrit]

You can install the OS on the SSD, then you launch your pc from the SSD. You'll see multiple drives in the "This PC" menu, and you can right click on them and select "Format". Now you'll have an SSD with your OS on it, and the two used HDD's which are now empty.

Im guessing everything will be explained while im installing the OS right ? i know how to format the drives when im in windows now im just wondering if it will be easy to select the ssd and whether the full hard drives with the Operating systems will make trouble while installing and booting from the ssd

[zyntaxable]

Im guessing everything will be explained while im installing the OS right ? i know how to format the drives when im in windows now im just wondering if it will be easy to select the ssd and whether the full hard drives with the Operating systems will make trouble while installing and booting from the ssd

In the bios you can select which drive to boot off

[BiggHertz]

In the bios you can select which drive to boot off

 

or enable hotswap on the other SATA ports of your motherboard, add the drives after boot, rescan disk in "diskmgmt.msc" 

 

download ActiveBits Kill Disk, Select the HDDs you want to wipe, and let the software do it's thing on the separate drives simultaneously. 500 GB drives take 30-45 minutes iirc.

 

-Jason 

[Jetfighter808]

I use Eraser V6. Works fine. I thing C-Cleaner has a hard drive erasure tool as well.