Bad HDD

Years ago I had a tool called "WD CLEAR". It would format almost anything. I need to format a hard drive installed in a laptop so I can reinstall Windows. Any suggestions appreciated

Hello @AFTommy,

AFTommy said:

Years ago I had a tool called "WD CLEAR". It would format almost anything. I need to format a hard drive installed in a laptop so I can reinstall Windows. Any suggestions appreciated

If you already have the installation media ready, when you boot to it, there is an option to delete ALL the existing partitions leaving a single unallocated partition in which to install Win 10 on.

I hope this helps!

Hi, AFTommy -

You can install Windows 10 without formatting anything beforehand. The install, if you select … OK PaulBlack

Matthew Wai said:

In case the OP is interested in DiskPart, press Shift + F10 to open Command Prompt.Then run the following:

DiskPart
List disk
Select disk X (X is the drive number of the HDD.)
Detail disk (Make sure you have selected the correct disk.)
Clean (Delete all partitions)
Convert GPT (Use GPT if your motherboard supports UEFI.)
Create partition primary
Format FS=NTFS quick

Just to add to the above, if you wanted a more aggressive approach, then use Clean All.

Matthew Wai said:

Clean all = "write zeros", which will take a very long time.

That is correct, it was just an alternative for the OP as a follow on from your post.
Usually you only need to use Clean All when you are selling the computer for example.

Matthew Wai said:

I assume the OP does not know that Clean all is used to destroy all data.

See his original post . . .

AFTommy said:

Years ago I had a tool called "WD CLEAR". It would format almost anything. I need to format a hard drive installed in a laptop so I can reinstall Windows. Any suggestions appreciated