Formatting old computer, any ideas?

[SNGX1275]

He wants to erase everything on the old computer and the best way to do that is to use a specialised utility available on CD for a couple of bucks.

Absolutely untrue. The Windows disk on a New Installation will format the partition.

This guy is having a hell of a time doing it with 1 disk when the instructions are right on the screen in front of him, asking him to obtain, burn, and successfully use another utility is asking too much. Plus my point about not knowing whether he'll even be able to boot off the CD once his HD is wiped.

The only reason to have a specialized utility is if you had sensitive information on the drive and were selling the computer, and the only reason that would be better is because you could potentially do a several pass writing of 1s and 0s.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Frankly, I regret suggesting GParted for two reasons. One, if jamiescottlomax is having trouble with something as simple as the Windows CD, there isn't much hope for them to be using GParted. Secondly, there is literally no reason to use GParted when the partition utilities integrated within the XP CD are plenty sufficient.

I mean absolutely no offense to you, jamiescottlomax, and I'm not questioning your intelligence. We all excel at one thing or another. I would like to make the final suggestion to you, that you take the machine to a "professional" and pay for their service. With all of the hours you are spending on trying to figure this out, you could just work a bit of overtime and pay someone to do it and do it right.