Zeroing the HHD and Clean Installing Windows Vista

Question

I would like to zero-fill my HHD and perform a clean installation of Windows Vista. If I understand correctly since my OS was preinstalled that the system won't allow this simple task, why I don't know? Well, I said I didn't know but I think its because they don't want you to kill Vista. It's a proprietary deal with the movie industries and a few other people which is highly ridiculous. It's like buying an automobile and having someone else tell you when you can drive it. Well whats the use in purchasing a product that you really can't control. Windows Vista is being forced on people and that's something that people don't like. All I wanted to do was zero fill my HHD for performance reasons and then reinstall Vista as much as I hated too, I preferred Windows XP PRO. I really don't hate Vista it's just that I happen to have a great deal of money tied up in software that I can't use. I'm sure Mr. Gates don't or never will have that problem. Since Microsoft forced this product on people why don't they refund all the legitimate hard working folk the monies they've lost in dealing with this mess. Right now the consumers are caught up between the software makers and Windows Vista. This really is a mess.

Larkin600 · Answer

Deleting the partition isn't the same as Low zero filling your HHD. The only way to really clean your HHD and get rid of files left behind is to zero fill the hard drive forcing any other files off the drive. You get better results which means better performance.

C3PO5 · Answer

Hi You do not need to 0 the drive just boot to the DVD when you get to the point where you see the partitions the recovery is the # 1 # 2 is the OS partition if you do not want the recovery partition just delete it and the OS partition then make one big drive partition and format it and off you go . I have did this many times . Good Luck !

C3PO5 · Answer

Ok Find out what your hard drive is Seagate or western digital and go to there web site and download the the tool that sets up a new drive and use it to 0 the drive yes i know the differents between 0 the drive & delete the partitions. Good Luck !

Larkin600 · Answer

CP305, that is the first thing I did exactly but I kept getting an error message saying that no drive was found error code statue 0120. So I figured it may have been a problem in my system that when I tried to download the Western Digital Diagnostic Dos program on a friends computer thats quite like mine. Yeah, you guessed it. The same error message popped up. I meant to say before in my message thank you for the help anyhow. I have tried almost everything. In other words the system won't let you kill the program. It has some sort of protection preventing you from doing what I'm doing thinking your going to install another OS. If you're able to download a diagnostic program from WD or Maxtor etc. let me know. I believe your going to find out what I already know. This is why I said what I did in my earlier comments. There is a way around this problem but check this out. I'm not using a raid configuration on my system but the Raid program is on by default and if you turn it off you then have another bag of problems. I would tell you to try it but I believe you do have a raid setup on your computer. You see I also have a Dell XPS 410 with 2Gs of Ram.

Message Edited by Larkin600 on 07-27-2007 01:44 PM

C3PO5 · Answer

Hi try this

Identifies and defines the SATA controller settings for RAID. You can set the SATA controller to RAID Autodetect/ATA or RAID On.set it to Raid autodetect/ata

To see if it will work.

Edit read this link to see if it will work for you

People with the same problems maybe.

http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=vista&thread.id=23453

Message Edited by C3PO5 on 07-27-2007 12:50 PM

C3PO5 · Answer

Hi I do not have Western Digital drives i have Seagate and have used the Seagate CD tool to do the same thing you are trying to do so i could not tell you how to use the WD tools sorry someone may step in that knows how to use the WD tools. I have always been able to remove an OS and replace it with another OS windows or Linux , it may very well be the raid on or off that is giving to the problem is there some other setting in the bios that you can try ? I just can,t understand why you are having this problem with your drive that is a first on me. Good Luck !

Windows General

Zeroing the HHD and Clean Installing Windows Vista

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