I understand that the difference between the hard drives is that mine is USED, but what do you mean USED? Used as in OLD? Or Used as in it has remnants of things on the hard drive that can be recovered?Both these statements are true in theory.
First your drive is old in both the fact that it is old and in the fact that you have information on it. It would take someone that knows what they are doing to be able to recover information from a drive that has been unpartitioned and then a new partition setup on it.
A partition is needed to setup the format.
A format is needed to setup the OS system
Partitioning is how the system assign a drive letter as in the main drive is usually referred to as the
C drive.
Formatting is the act of deleting all files and getting the system ready to except the install of data or the OS system
By un-partitioning the drive, then repartition it. Then formatting that partition you can be sure that the average user will not be able to get any information off the drive.
When you install a new OS system and put programs on the drive they will write over the old remnants thus making it even harder and eventually virtually impossible to recover that information.
You should have no problem once you have done this if you are thinking of selling your system. One thing i will tell you is if the system is a brand name then the recovery cd that should have come with the system will have to stay with the system when you sell it.
If it is a
OEM installation then the same will apply as the cd is usually married to that system only.
I hope this makes sense and if not please let me know and I will explain further or ask Moderator or Administrator to try and explain it for you.
Edited by rshaffer61, 09 June 2009 - 09:33 PM.