Need help cleaning out hard drive and reinstalling OS

[DaMaluJordan]

I have a Gateway FX4710-UB003A.
When I first started it, the computer worked perfectly. Extremely fast and not many problems. I am running a 64-Bit Vista OS. Recently, I got a virus and I decided to clean out my entire hard drive. The computer came with an Operating System Disc. On the disk it says "WARNING: This process erases all data and files from the hard drive." It told me that I should put in the CD, restart my computer, and follow the directions. I did as it was told. My computer comes with a 640 gb hard drive with 580 gb of usable space. I wanted everything to be deleted. From the looks of it, everything was deleted but the problem is it says that my computer only has 450 gb of hard drive space. That was how much i had before I inserted the CD. Did I do something wrong? If 130 gb are being used, then how come none of the programs are there? I don't know what I should do. I want all 580 gb of hard drive space back but don't know how to do it. Please help me out. Thanks.

 

[raybay]

Did you run a full reformat? Or setup the drive with the drive manufacturer's setup software?
You can have the result you report if you do not remove the partition and start over with a new format, a normal part of VISTA setup.

 

[DaMaluJordan]

im not sure

im not sure if it was a full reformat or not.
i somewhat figured out what to do.
i figured out that the disk space was being taken up because all of the old files were saved in a folder called Windows.old which is found in Partition_1( C : ). The only problem is, I can't delete that folder even though I want to. A message keeps coming up saying "You need permission to perform this action." It gives me the option of Try Again, Skip, and Cancel. Only cancel works. I want to get rid of this folder and waste of space. Please help me out. Thanks.

 

[raybay]

Won't hurt to re-do it from a cold boot to the VISTA disk, and follow the normal instructions to create a new partition. It will automatically remove the old partition.

 

[ravisunny2]

Download the disk utility from the mfg site, and do a 'zero fill' or equivalent.

 

[DaMaluJordan]

For raybay's response, I'm not sure what a cold boot is or how to do it.
How do I do the cold boot to the vista disk? And where will it tell me how to create a new partition and remove the old one?
For ravisunny2's repsonse, I'm not sure at all what that means.

 

[ravisunny2]

Sorry for the late response. My internet connection has been up hardly 5% of the time lately.

Every harddisk manufacturer provides software utilities for low level wiping, reformatting etc.

Some times, a utility from another hdd mfg works too (to a limited extent).

The 'Zero fill' option in the seagate utility, overwrites everhing currently on the harddisk, and I use it when I do a clean install.