reformatting HP laptop

[frankieluccini]

i want to reformat my hp laptop.
this is my first laptop, and with that my first
reformatting on a laptop.

i'm used to doing FDISK, which from what i understand
will completely wipe the drive clean.
i was also under the impression that just doing "reformat"
will not actually wipe the entire drive.

anyways................
i'm running XP, i have no floopy drive, and i know i can
reformat by just popping the XP cd in, and boot from that.

QUESTION..........
if i reformat from the XP disk, will that completely wipe the
drive clean, like in FDISK, or is there a better or proper method?

FDISK does not wipe the drive. It just removes the partitions from the table. FORMATING will not wipe the drive either. It just tells the table that there's no data.

When you get to the option, just choose to do a fresh install of XP and you will get the option to format the drive. That's all you need to do.

[frankieluccini]

thanks for the reply.
out of curiousity.....how can i completely wipe a drive clean?
and don't say "hold up a magnet."

and while were on the subject.......
i havn't had much help from hp tech support.
i was curious if i needed to save any drivers and whatnot
to cd, before re-formatting.
just the stuff that keeps the computer running, aside from
any other programs i'll put on it.
also, if so, will that information load from a cd on bootup?
i have no floopy.