Deleting Hard Drive- Odd Situation

Hello all. I have seen this site and used it as a reference many times. You all seem very knowledgeable, and I am glad to now be a member.

I bought a Dell XPS system last year, and decided to take the hard drive out of my old computer (XP) and jam it in the new XPS system (Vista), to use as a backup for files.

I did nothing except put the drive in. I still had all the info on it from the last computer (XP and all my programs).

Well now I have to delete the backups every few months because there is no room on the second drive (drive letter J:).

I have tried to just right click and delete everything, which obviously doesn't not work.

After a year I now know I do not need the old drives contents. Can someone explain to be in simple, easy terms how to delete the entire contents of the drive (J) while it is still in the computer? I no longer have the old computer.

I want to save all my Vista stuff, and do not want to touch that drive, just wipe out the second drive and leave it 100% open for backups. No other OS, nothing but backup.

Thanks all. I hope I haven't rambled, and I appreciate any info.

I've run into similar situations with my backups...I would get "access denied" messages if I had moved my backups to a different drive on which they had originally been created.

I solved this by using the Security Tab on XP Home and changing the permissions for those files (which is a bit tricky, probably more work than you want to do)....but you can probably do it by just taking ownership of those files/folders.

How to take ownership of a file or a folder in Windows XP - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

How Do I See the Security tab in XP Home (Doug Knox) - http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_home_sectab.htm

Louis

To answer your question...your Windows disk or Disk Management (either)...can be used to delete any existing partition you want, other than the current system/boot drive.

Disk Management - http://www.theeldergeek.com/disk_management.htm

Edited by hamluis, 26 October 2009 - 06:24 PM.

Thanks Louis.

However, I think my problem is different. I am not all that tech savy, so bear with me here.

I just want to wipe out the old drive. I do not want to reinstall an OS, I just want all that junk gone to make room for more backup space.

I am also not all that worried about secure deletion, I just want it all gone.

Do I need to download something, make a cd/disk, and reboot?

I know if I were going to reinstall some sort of OS I could just put a disk in and let it do the rest, but I am not doing that. I just need to delete everything and leave it blank.

Thanks again to anyone that may have input here, this had driven me nuts for a long while, and I am just now getting off my butt to fix it!

Roy

If you read the Disk Management link...you will see that you can delete partitions...and then create a new (primary) (NTFS) partition...from within Disk Management.

No other tools necessary .

Start/Run...type diskmgmt.msc and hit Enter...that gets you to Disk Management.

Louis

Thanks Louis!

I guess I didn't understand before. My apologies.

I am running a full format on the drive, and it appears everything is just what I wanted!

I have had this issue for a long, long while. And like I said, I just decided to finally fix it. I was nervous, and had no clue how to do it, but you made it easy as can be.

Thanks again!

Roy

You did all the work...happy computing .

Louis