How to Clean an Old Hard Drive
Just as attics and closets become cluttered over time, digital storage spaces can get filled with junk data. As you use a computer and install new programs and data on the hard drive, the hard drive will gradually fill up unless you make a conscious effort to cull unnecessary data. If you never plan on using the hard drive again, an option is reformatting to wipe out its memory.
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Instructions
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Cleaning a Hard Drive
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Transfer old data to a storage hard drive and delete the original files. Old documents, videos and audio files take up a lot of space, especially on older hard drives. Drag these files into the folder for your secondary hard drive to copy them, then move them to the recycle bin and empty it. If you don't know where files are, use the search feature to look for files by file extension--for instance, search for .doc, .avi, .mpeg or .mp3 for various video, document, image and music files.
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Uninstall old programs. Click "Start," "Control Panel," then "Add/Remove Programs." Go through the list and double click on any program you no longer need to begin the unistallation process. Old computer games take up especially large chunks of space.
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Run the Disk Cleanup utility. Click "Start," "Programs," "Accessories," "System Tools," then "Disk Cleanup."
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Run the Disk Defragmenter tool. Under the same "System Tools" menu as the Disk Cleanup, select "Disk Defragmenter" and run it on your old hard drive. It can take several hours to run, so plan accordingly.
Wiping a Hard Drive
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Boot up your computer with an operating system contained on a hard drive other than the old hard drive.
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Transfer all files you want to save off the old hard drive onto a secondary drive.
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Click "Start," "Control Panel," "Administrative Tools," "Computer Management," and finally "Disk Management."
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Locate the old hard drive in the list of drives, right click on it and select "Format." Select a name for the new drive and a file system type and click "OK." Formatting will wipe all the data from the hard drive.
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Tips & Warnings
If you are worried about people pulling sensitive data off an old hard drive, reformat and then reinstall the operating system to help eliminate the possibility of retrieving information.
