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Well I finally did it! Last week I bit the bullet and bought a new computer to replace my old Computersaurus, which was running Win98, had a whopping nine (count 'em NINE) gig hard drive, and 192 megs of RAM.
I am now in possession of a lovely new laptop running WinXP (I had Win98 for so long that I actually missed THREE operating systems... LOL)
I now have a gig of RAM, 60 gig hard drive, CD/DVD writer, and I also bought an external hard drive for backing up data and such. I am using the laptop as the computer and monitor only, and have plugged in my old curved full size keyboard and optical trackball mouse because I LOVE them both so much. When I travel, I'll have to suck it up and use the silly flat touch pad mouse and the little laptop keyboard, but that's okay. At least I'll be able to take my computer with me wherever I go! Woohoo!
Just thought I'd share my happy news. Thanks to all who advised me before when I was hemming and hawing around the issue.
My two questions are:
1. How do I safely and completely format my old hard drive (the one that is still in the old desktop computer) so I can safely give the computer away for someone else to use?
2. If I do format the old hard drive, will someone have to have an operating system CD? In other words, when I format, I'm wiping EVERYTHING off, including the OS, so they'd have to have hard copies of an OS yes?
Thanks!!
Shoeless
I am now in possession of a lovely new laptop running WinXP (I had Win98 for so long that I actually missed THREE operating systems... LOL)
I now have a gig of RAM, 60 gig hard drive, CD/DVD writer, and I also bought an external hard drive for backing up data and such. I am using the laptop as the computer and monitor only, and have plugged in my old curved full size keyboard and optical trackball mouse because I LOVE them both so much. When I travel, I'll have to suck it up and use the silly flat touch pad mouse and the little laptop keyboard, but that's okay. At least I'll be able to take my computer with me wherever I go! Woohoo!
Just thought I'd share my happy news. Thanks to all who advised me before when I was hemming and hawing around the issue.
My two questions are:
1. How do I safely and completely format my old hard drive (the one that is still in the old desktop computer) so I can safely give the computer away for someone else to use?
2. If I do format the old hard drive, will someone have to have an operating system CD? In other words, when I format, I'm wiping EVERYTHING off, including the OS, so they'd have to have hard copies of an OS yes?
Thanks!!
Shoeless