Best way to wipe drive

[neworldman]

I got a new Dell that I want to wipe the drive clean and install W7 Ultimate I have. Is there a good free program to wipe the drive clean? Or is using the windows cd to reformat good enough? I want to get all the Dell stuff off and start over. Thanks

[SLK001]

Since you are keeping the drive, there is no need to completely wipe the drive. A utility like Partition Magic can be used from a boot disk to "fdisk" the thing to remove any partitions and then create one large primary partition which you can then format.

Just be sure that you have all the drivers needed for the Dell saved onto some removeable media.

[Backpain]

Before you wipe your hard drive and install Windows 7, do some home work and find all your needed drivers for your Dell. I found out the hard way that not all drivers that came with your Dell are compatible with Windows 7.

[Backpain]

Try and look for a free version of KillDisk. www.killdisk.com

[surfmonkee]

i like boot and nuke available from major geeks. free.
beware this will wipe every drive connected to the machine

use with caution

[ranchhand]

Why bother with 3rd party utilities? Those tools are more for security, as in disposing of an old hard drive and you want to erase all data permanently. Just use the Windows 7 install disk, remove all partitions (there should be 2, the main and one for the restore partition) and reduce to RAW space. Reset your main partition and format. That will nuke everything on the drive. Then install Windows.

[Noahtuck]

If it's a new Dell, then there should be W7 drivers available from their website and just wiping it clean with a W7 disc should be fine.

I have done many of my friends new laptops this way to remove all the garbage they install on them and that will be installed if you use their "restore disc's"