Can a hard disc drive, erased with dban, be re-used?

[Syncopator]

I am considering rebooting from a dban ISO disc to get rid of the last remnants of Google and God knows what other rubbish is lurking on it.

Having done that, will I be able to re-install Windows 7?

 

[samuria]

Yes it's simpler to just use diskpar clean just deleting all partitions will remove everything no need to go over the top

 

[Megahertz07]

Please explain "rebooting from a dban ISO disc ".
If you want to reinstall Win 7 just do Factory recover.
- Backup your files on an external drive
- Launch Factory recover HP Notebook PCs - Using System Recovery, Factory Reset and Minimized Image Recovery Options | HP® Customer Support
. It will format the C: partition and load the Image from the Recovery partition.
- Install all drivers and updates. MS releases SP2 for Windows 7 - Windows 7 Help Forums
- Restore your files

You can also do a clean install
- Backup your files on an external drive
- Clean Install Windows 7 - Windows 7 Help Forums
- Install all drivers and updates. MS releases SP2 for Windows 7 - Windows 7 Help Forums
- Restore your files

 

[Syncopator]

Please explain "rebooting from a dban ISO disc ".

I want easily, with no messing about, to erase everything from my hard drive. As far as I know, dban will do exactly that.

I've looked at diskpart clean, suggested in another reply, but everything I came across is far too verbose and refers to this , that , and every other versions of Windows etc.

I just want confirmation the booting from a dban ISO disc will leave the hard drive free and clean. I can't see that any other method has any advantage/s.

 

[Megahertz07]

This kind of software is to clean the disk when you intent to have it impossible to recover any data. It will randomly write 1 and 0 to every bit on the disk. It can take days to do it. As you're not going to give the disk to anyone else, YOU DON'T NEED IT.

My suggestion is to do a Factory recover. It will set your computer as it came from HP.
A Clean install will delete ALL partitions and create new ones. You will have to install all drivers (that you can download from HP site). You will also have to use the COA key attached to the computer to activate.

 

[Mellon Head]

I am considering rebooting from a dban ISO disc to get rid of the last remnants of Google and God knows what other rubbish is lurking on it.

Having done that, will I be able to re-install Windows 7?

Overkill (for the reasons others have stated), but to directly answer your question: yes you can reuse the disk. You just have to re-partition it and format it and you'll be good to go.

 

[Syncopator]

The machine has an "interesting" history.

It first had Vista installed by HP. This was later replaced with XP, and that was subsequently replaced with Windows 7.

All done by Microsoft approved re-furbishers or whatever they're called. It has a COA history included with the accompanying paperwork.

There are several partitions which, as far as I am concerned, are nothing more than a waste of disc space. That's why I want to wipe it clean.

 

[Megahertz07]

When you do a clean install, you delete ALL partitions and then proceed with win 7 install.
When you delete ALL partitions nothing will remain on the disk.

 

[Syncopator]

Ok, thank you, I'll try that.