How do I erase an external hard drive?

[ExJxC]

I found programs to erase internal hard drives but I do not have a floppy to boot from. The drive use to be my notebooks internal drive so I want to make sure it is clean of everything.

[iCamp]

You could right click on it and select 'format'.

[daacon]

If this is your primary dirve then you could use your Windows XP CD to format as part of a new install. If you are looking to install another OS (Linux perhaps) the installation will offer a format option.

You could also create a bootable CD and put the tools on reqguired (google for bootle cd's ) . Some of the BIOS use to offer a low level format option as well - I have not looked for that feature for a while.

If you have more than one computer and you are networked - and you are runing Widows you could connect to the root of the drive you want to format ( hidden share for all Widows machines (c$ or d$) then format the networked drive from the main computer.

Always ways to destroy data

[REDFROG]

when the drive is connected to the computer go to
Start/Settings/Control pannle/Administrative tools/Computer Management; on the left there is a menu and in the menu goto Storage/Disk Management, then select the disk in the visual display thing by right clicking it and select delete partition or format. Delete partition will make the drive/partion unformated (therefor it will have no data) and it will have to be re formated or you can re format the drive to a format and size of your choosing.
i hoped that helped.

ps. the control pannle and start menu will have to be in classic style for those directions to work.

[ExJxC]

when the drive is connected to the computer go to
Start/Settings/Control pannle/Administrative tools/Computer Management; on the left there is a menu and in the menu goto Storage/Disk Management, then select the disk in the visual display thing by right clicking it and select delete partition or format. Delete partition will make the drive/partion unformated (therefor it will have no data) and it will have to be re formated or you can re format the drive to a format and size of your choosing.
i hoped that helped.

ps. the control pannle and start menu will have to be in classic style for those directions to work.

REDFROG- THANK YOU! That worked great!!!!!

[REDFROG]

Thats ok any time