How to remove contents of external hard drive

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Gloria E
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How to remove contents of external hard drive

Post by Gloria E »

I have an old backup of Windows XP Home on this drive and I would like to remove it as it's no longer relevant.

I need step-by-step instructions on how to do this. :scratch:

All suggestions will be appreciated. :cheers:


Gloria E
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, red wine in the other, body thoroughly used up. Totally worn out & screaming "Wow, Wee What a ride!

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stuck
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Re: How to remove contents of external hard drive

Post by stuck »

Surely all you need to do is reformat it? Search Windows help for 'format disk'

Ken

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viking33
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Re: How to remove contents of external hard drive

Post by viking33 »

Gloria E wrote:I have an old backup of Windows XP Home on this drive and I would like to remove it as it's no longer relevant.

I need step-by-step instructions on how to do this. :scratch:

All suggestions will be appreciated. :cheers:


Gloria E
Go to Windows Explorer> right click on the drive in question and scroll down to FORMAT and click it. It will ask are you sure? Click yes.
IF you need a more secure cleanup, after the reformat, open CCleaner ( you do have it? ) All the way down on the bottom is a check box for "Wipe Free Space", check it and run CCleaner. ( it will take a while )
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Gloria E
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Re: How to remove contents of external hard drive

Post by Gloria E »

stuck wrote:Surely all you need to do is reformat it? Search Windows help for 'format disk'

Ken
Of course, how could I forget such a simple process. The beginning of Alzheimer's perhaps? :flee:

Gloria E
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, red wine in the other, body thoroughly used up. Totally worn out & screaming "Wow, Wee What a ride!

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DaveA
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Re: How to remove contents of external hard drive

Post by DaveA »

All I do is delete the files that I don't need any longer, but then again I do use TrueImage which may be different from your back up program.
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Gloria E
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Re: How to remove contents of external hard drive

Post by Gloria E »

The entire D drive contains everything I had on my main drive (C. Are you suggesting that I remove all the files therein one by one?
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, red wine in the other, body thoroughly used up. Totally worn out & screaming "Wow, Wee What a ride!

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Hey Jude
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Re: How to remove contents of external hard drive

Post by Hey Jude »

Gloria E wrote:The entire D drive contains everything I had on my main drive (C. Are you suggesting that I remove all the files therein one by one?
:grin: the animals went into the Ark "two by two" so I would hope you would do no less :flee:

Seriously, I have cleaned my EHD by using the same format/CCleaner process in times past.
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John Gray
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Re: How to remove contents of external hard drive

Post by John Gray »

If you went into a Command Prompt window you could run, typing rather carefully:
RD /S /Q D:\
John Gray

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Gloria E
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Re: How to remove contents of external hard drive

Post by Gloria E »

I would like to thank both you and Hey Jude for your suggestions. I'd rather use yours (John) than CCleaner, and I'll be oh so careful.
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, red wine in the other, body thoroughly used up. Totally worn out & screaming "Wow, Wee What a ride!