How do I erase everything on external hard drive, including the OS?

General Topics
1

Hello, I have this old Pentium III Desktop collecting dust and have managed to remove the 10GB 3.5 IDE HHD, I’m planning on buying a 3.5 External IDE/SATA HHD Enclosure for it, I’m planning on doing a full installation of Lubuntu on it, however, I read in the Ubuntu forums, the External HHD needs to be FAT32, but the old HHD is NTFS, because Windows XP is installed on it, so my question is, how do I erase everything on the HHD, including Windows XP and making the file system FAT32?

I see that CCleaner has a Drive Wiper, with the option of ‘Entire Drive’, can CCleaner do this? I would ask in the Piriform forum, but I cannot access their forum, it give me a ‘403 Forbidden’ message.

2

Hi, the linux installer should format the disk when you install Lubuntu. :slight_smile:

3

Thanks, but just in case I plan on using it as a second storage instead, can CCleaner’s Drive Wiper erase everything on the HHD, including Windows XP and making the file system FAT32?

4

CCleaner can wipe it but will not format.

5

Thanks for the reply, so how can I erase everything on it, including the OS?

6

Hi, GParted will do this. http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php/
Hope this helps.

7

Thanks, after reading through the site, I either have to burn the program to a CD or make a LiveUSB of it, and then boot it just like I would install an operating system, this is difficult for me, I don’t have a burner and I already made a Lubuntu LiveUSB and the other USB Flash Drives I have are already full of backups.

Is there no freeware disk partitioning application that I can install within Windows?

8

This is an external hard disk so the OS you have installed on it is just data in effect, so you should be able to format that external hard disk when connected to a system with a running OS. With the drive connected, in the explorer window right click on the partition on that external drive you want to format and select Format.

You should get a window with the various Format options, FAT32 should be listed (if the OS running is windows), and if the format should be Quick or not.

9

hello

Ubuntu when installing on a hard drive will use ext4 format it use to use ext3
i just installed lubuntu on a pc and it used ext4 also

i think at the Ubuntu forum thay mean that to use a external hard drive just for
storage you can use fat32 or ntfs but fat32 only has a 4GB max file size

Lubuntu is just over 3GB after updating and no other programs installed yet so
fat32 would not work good

also when installing Lubuntu you can use the entire hard drive so it would overwrite
the hard drive when it formats it to ext4

How do I format an external harddrive so files can be accessed by both ubuntu and PC?
http://askubuntu.com/questions/153858/how-do-i-format-an-external-harddrive-so-files-can-be-accessed-by-both-ubuntu-an

:slight_smile:

10

ubuntu live installation media (certaily ubuntu and xubuntu) includes gparted - it just doesn’t get installed with the OS.

So run your livecd, run gparted, and do what you want to the external HDD, then install from your livecd.

11

One other point that may help.

Lubuntu is a great OS - if it will run on your hardware.

I haven’t found the 'buntu derivatives to be the most tolerant with old hardware.

If lubuntu won’t boot, try PCLinuxOS LXDE. My experience that it is very hardware tolerant (and it’s very fast).

12

You might want to take a look at the following:
Darik’s Boot And Nuke