procedure when RMA ing a machine

[Mainframeguy]

I am about to RMA this laptop with a bad HD... but it is not terminally dead (as you can see) and I am just wondering what is the best and quickest procedure for a wipe given it's an XP home install - should I find my old 98 SE disc and aim for an FDISK (which may fail) or what?

 

[Mainframeguy]

Bump!

Have to do the RMA when the courier comes in the morning! whaddya all suggest? Or shall I just try DEL *.* in a DOS window? Or throw the desktop in the recycle bin? Heck I could have some kinda weird fun laterz - but I was hoping for some fun suggestions from here too

 

[Electronic Punk]

what os did it come with?

 

[dreamliner77]

Fill the hard drive with movies and pics of badgers!!!

 

[Mainframeguy]

it came with XP home on a ghost system image (2x "recovery" CD's to reformat per shipped)

I like the idea of trying to fill the hd with that stuff... unfortunately around the 12 GB mark it seems to hit the bad part of the disc so the plan is flawed (though fun to try)... rather I am concerned (paranoid?) about wiping anything to do with my personal stuff / identity / passwords... I have done the obvious stuff (cache etc) but am looking to be super cautious

 

[Electronic Punk]

well you really don't want to fdisk...
as that may wipe hidden system partitions.

Boot to the XP disc to a full FAT32 format (if possible, ntfs otherwise)
then get as far thru the recovery image as possible...

In these situations, you have to think what the average computer user would attempt to do!

 

[Lee]

Burn it, Burn it I say.