Hard drive

[reddiesel]

Hi ann Ive just bought a new 64x2 cpu, and asrock mobo, to start putting together a new pc, i have a used 250G sata hard drive, how can i reformat it so its clean ?.

[Annabell]

Hi Red

You can connect your SATA HDD to a running PC and format via (my computer > right click on the drive and in the drop down click format - or you can download DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) to a Floppy Disk / burn it to a CD-R / run it from a Flash Drive Boot, disconnect the main boot drive in the Computer you attach the SATA HDD that is to be formatted, DBAN will find the drive on boot and securely format it, DBAN > Here Note DBAN will erase all data and ANY Virus known "i do use and recommend DBAN for a total format"

Ann X

[reddiesel]

Thanks for that ann, Ive got xp pro to go on it, is the 64 version a lot better , is it worth upgrading to that ?.

[Annabell]

Hi Red

Note - Windows XP Professional x64 Edition cannot be successfully installed on x86 (32-bit) systems or 64-bit Intel Itanium–based systems. 32-bit device drivers are not supported on Windows XP Professional x64 Edition,

From Microsoft - 32-bit editions of Windows are capable of supporting up to 4 gigabytes (GB) of system memory, with up to 2 GB of dedicated memory per process. Windows Professional XP Edition x64 currently supports up to 128 GB of RAM, with the potential to support up to 16 terabytes of virtual memory as hardware capabilities and memory sizes improve.

Most home users don't run x64, mostly used in office and workstations as many applications "eg" freeware is 32bit, but if you want to why not !, as long as your system can support it.

Ann