How to Wipe a Hard Drive From a Floppy Disk

Floppy disks can be used to wipe a hard drive

Computers are prone to errors. Some persistent malicious programs such as viruses, trojans, adware and spyware can be hard to remove. In other cases, too many critical system files may be irrecoverably lost. At one time or another, almost every computer user comes across a situation requiring a clean start from scratch, since the errors on the computer are too much to get rid of individually. The first step in this process is formatting the hard disk drive --- this can be done from a floppy disk.

Things You'll Need

• Floppy disk
• Computer running Windows

Instructions

1. Insert the floppy disk into an uninfected computer. Open "My Computer," right-click the floppy drive icon and click "Format." Check "Create an MS-DOS startup disk" in the Format window, and click "Start." Once the process finishes, close the Format window. Make sure that the floppy disk used is free from infection itself--this can be done by running it through antivirus software on an uninfected computer.

2. Insert the floppy disc into the infected computer.
   Click "Start," click "Run," type:
   cmd
   Press "Enter." In the MS-DOS prompt window that appears, type:
   c:
   Press "Enter." Type:
   cd\
   Press "Enter." At the C:\> prompt, type
   cd windows\system32
   Press "Enter." Type
   copy format.com a:
   Press "Enter." Type
   exit
   Press "Enter."

3. Restart your computer with the floppy disk still in the drive. If you see a message similar to "Press any key to boot from floppy drive," or are presented with an A:\> prompt, the computer will boot or has booted from the floppy drive. (Press a key if you get that message.)

   If get no such message or an A:\> prompt and the computer boots the way it used to, you will need to change the boot sequence in your BIOS settings to boot from the floppy disk. Once that is done, restart your computer again and your computer should boot from the floppy disk.

4. At the A:\> prompt, type:
   format c:
   Press "Enter." Confirm any on-screen prompts by typing:
   y
   Repeat this for all hard disk drive partitions you have on your computer.

Tips & Warnings

• You can prepare the floppy on one computer and use it on another computer if the one you want to wipe clean does not start into Windows correctly.

• It is useful to check how many hard disk partitions you have, if you can access the computer, to avoid randomly attempting to format nonexistent partitions in step 4.

• Formatting a hard drive erases all the data stored on it. Make sure you have a back-up before you proceed. If you don't have a backup but need the data on the hard drive, you may need to physically connect it to another computer to do so.

• Always check that the floppy disk is free from any virus itself--while a boot disk can be made on the infected computer, making the boot disk on an uninfected computer is highly recommended, as is running the disk through antivirus software prior to using it to wipe the hard drive of an infected computer.

References

• How to Create a Boot Disk

Resources

• How to Change the Boot Sequence in BIOS