Hiya Guys,
I need to completely and entirely wipe the hard drive on one of my machines. (The Windows XP recovery disc isn't thorough enough!)
I see that there's quite a few programs out there for this and I was hoping somebody here could recommend one of them. (preferably free!)
I've reinstalled XP quite a few times on this machine, but it keeps crashing. I'm completely out of ideas, so this is a last ditch effort before I trash the machine and buy a new one.
Thanks!
 

Format c:    should do the job.
Make sure you have all your data backed up and a bootable disk ready.
You want to do a full format, not a quick format.

If after that the drive still gives you trouble, maybe the drive has some bad sectors. You could buy a new hard drive before buying a whole new computer.

format c:/u 

is a good way to completly clean format your hd dont use /Q =quick its not clean enough..

Chris
 

As Conniekat says, Format c: should help, if there's nothing physically wrong with your system.  Even better is Format c:s but random crashes are often due to overheating.

I would highly recommend you open the casing (with the power off, of course) and see if there's a buildup of dust anywhere.  It's worth removing the processor fan and cleaning the heatsink vanes with a toothpick and sweeping the dust away from the power supply vents.

BTW, you can safely use a vacuum cleaner provided you don't go at it like a bull at a gate.

You've got a hardware problem.

I administer a network of 50+ PCs running, mainly, XP also a few running 2000 and 2 running 98. If I had to reinstall and reformat as many times as the PC quacks and MAC evangelists would have you believe then my job would be impossible.

I have no idea what your problem is but; if it's a new machine, complain to your hardware supplier, otherwise post some system specs and OS versions. Nobody can help you with the information you've supplied.

oh, I meant to add this link, little more info on formatting:  http://www.computerhope.com/formathl.htm

I do lean in a direction of what jwhitham is saying. Usually, once the hard drive is regormated and restored, it shouldn't go bad very quickly.

Several years ago I had a misbehaving hard drive like that, and it turned out it had a few bad tracks in a boot sector - of all places. Ended up getting a replacement from the manufacturer.

Recently, I had a computer that behaved somewhat errantly because of driver conflicts... but lot of that was self-inflicted... On that one, I reformatted and started from scratch, and it's working quite well now.

Thanks for the responses guys.
Like I said, this is a last ditch effort. The machine is a Gateway that I bought last year. (AMD 4200 X2, 2 Gigs DDR2, 320 Gb HD, ATI X800 Pro)
It started crashing about 6 months after I picked it up. The crashes are completely random. Sometimes it will crash minutes after I turn it on, other times I can render in 3ds Max for 12 hours without a problem.
I reseated the CPU, added a bigger heat sink and fan, added an additional pusher as well as a puller and a PCI fan. I also put a 600W psu in. I was certain this was either a power or heat issue, but it looks like I'm wrong.
I've never had problems with Gateways before, but once I opened the case all warranties were voided.
I'm looking at a barebones FX-62 machine now, but it's still nice to have multiple machines for those longer renders.

If you are running win xp have a dig through the admin logs and see if any errors have occured. This is in start > control panel > administrative tools > event viewer

Opening the case should not void the warrenty if there are expansion slots available.

You may have some bad ram or something intermittant , which are a real pain to find.  

A scandisk or chkdsk might help.

I don't know too much about Gateway, they withdrew form my local market (UK) some years ago, not leaving an exactly great vibe behind.

Just because the manufacurer stuck a piece of paper over a screw reading "undo this and your warranty is void" doesn't mean that's true, they're just trying it on. You really should have complained when it first went wrong, not tried puting it right yourself. But you are where you are, so, by all means spec a new machine, but also search the net for other users with shared problems and complain! If you don't try, you won't get.

Attached Link: http://dban.sourceforge.net/

of course if you really want to erase a hard drive (forever..) look for something called a bulk tape eraser..;)

I'm gonna try the DBAN program and see what happens.
I popped the case open about 5 minutes after I got it home. It has 3 open PCI slots and an open PCIe slot, so it's stupid that Gateway forbids you to open her up. I would have called their customer service, but I don't feel like hiring a translator.
My last hope is that I have a corrupt driver or old frakked-up XP update that the recovery didn't get at.
Isn't there some free app. that tests your RAM for problems?

think it's called memtest.

Hey mon, DBAN is the way to go - it will completely "zero" the drive. Formating won't affect the boot sector and sometimes that needs to be wiped as well. good luck joe

You can enter BIOS setup during boot (before the OS starts loading), usually by pressing ESC or DEL. 
In the BIOS you can turn of the Quick POST (Power On Self Test) option. Save your settings, the machine will reboot.
During the boot it will test your installed memory. This is completely OS independent. Usually, if there is a bad memory module onboard, this test will catch it.
Don't forget to turn on Quick POST again after testing - it mightily slows down the booting process!

As for fixing up a hard disk, the standard DOS utility FDISK is able to rewrite the master boot record. FDISK /mbr will do the job.

Hi!

I think this program does a pretty good job testing out your computers hardware.

http://www.sisoftware.net/

Even the free version fills its purpose but not all modules ar avalible.

Regards / Jonny

You may want to try reseating your RAM modules. Random hangs and reboots are almost always RAM/Heat/CPU related and CPU's almost never go faulty.

You can also try a trick that I have been using for years to breathe new life into old machines that are playing up. Use a pencil eraser to carefully clean the edge connectors on all your RAM modules and then reinsert them carefully but firmly. As machines get older grime sometimes starts to form on edge connectors such as the RAM modules and PCI cards and the like. Using the eraser will get rid of it and ensure good connectivty again. This works a treat on old PCI cards that I can't bring myself to turf because they are worth a fortune, like SCSI RAID adapters etc.

I have a graphics card that requires a clean every 6 months or so otherwise one day I just get no picture and error beeps from the machine.

Good luck.

Again, thanks for the help guys!
I ran the memtest utility and it didn't detect any errors with my RAM.
I'm running DBAN on my HD right now. It's a 320 GB Western Digital and DBAN has been running for over eight hours...and it's only 5 percent complete! Is this normal? It will literally take a week for this thing to finish!

I don't want to wazz on yer bonfire but once I used to swear by WD drives.  Now I swear at 'em.  I've had 3 of them go bugfuck on me in as many years.

As for DBAN, I haven't used it myself but if it runs in any way like most disk scanning utils I've encountered, it will speed up after about 10% - 20%.  So that's one bit of good news, I guess.

On a Home PC, I highly  recommend Partition Magic

It hasn't failed me yet for clean Windows XP installs.

You can have fresh installs in under an hour with it.

DBAN's been running for 24 hours now...and it's at 15 percent.
Maybe I should just run up to Best Buy and pick up a new drive...

or memory...it's pretty darn cheap compared to what it used to be...