Setting Up New system

[CraigK]

system specs:
-Asus A7N8X MoBo
-AMD 2500/333 Athlon XP Barton CPU
-2 x Crucial 512 PC2700 DDR Ram
-Gainward GeForce4 TI4800SE 128mb vid card
-Lite On 52x32x52 CD-RW
-AOpen 16x DVD
-SB Audigy(from current system)
-Maxtor 80g 5400rpm (from current system)

I have all the parts except the DVD-Rom and floppy drive so far.
I want to start putting the parts into the case to get it out of the way, but I have a few questions to ask before I start putting it together.

1. My CPU came in the retail box with the stock fan and heatsink. I don't overclock. the heatsink has a square of something gray on it where it comes into contact with the processor. does anybody know if the gray stuff is thermal compund? as i think it is.

2. Im grabbing my hard drive from my current system, and was wondering how i go about formatting it and clearing any traces of it from my current system ex: not in My Computer. It was a slave for storage but is going to be my master boot drive in the new rig.

3. I have the CD for my OS (Windows XP Pro). do I need a boot disk to install it? if so how do I make one?

My current rig was built by me and my cousin. My cousin did all of the setting up. I just installed the hardware. SO any help you can give me in setting up the OS and the software aspect to a new system would be of great help.

On a courtesy note: Please do not post anything that says "You should have gotten this or bought that." it's just not needed. whats bought is bought.

[Telexen]

1. Yes. It should be pink...it has a little plastic cover on it you need to peel off before you apply it to the CPU...

2. Just put it in your new system as a primary master...*follow instruction 3*

3. ...boot the the Windows XP CD (set the CDROM as first boot device) and follow on-screen instructions

[Omardeth]

seems like telexen set ya up . listen to him he is telling it like it is .

[CraigK]

1. I see that my heatsink has a plastic cover over the bottom and not a film. according to the instructions i found this is supposed to be like that. the grey stuff is the thermal compound.

All I have to do is take the HDD out and change the jumper and the drive will be automatically formatted??? the information and the partition type will disappear?

The OS disc will automatically partition the drive? what about the software that came with the drive, is it not needed?

[cbuddha42]

changing the jumper has nothing to do with formatting. winxp install will let you format and re partition and data doesn't go away when you format, you would need to zero it if you actually want to remove your data

[CraigK]

well, I want to completely wipe it clean of everything on it. Make it as bare as if i was just opening the box. right now it is only a storage drive with junk that I can delete, and its partitioned as NFTS. how do I make sure it is clean.

[Telexen]

http://download.com.com/3000-2092-10...ml?tag=lst-0-1

that will really wipe it clean

[DoctorReno]

To wipe the drive the way you want you need a zero fill format utility. Usually you can get such a utility from the HD mfg web site by downloading the drive mfg utility disks, it will be one of the utilities in the disks.
Some may call it a low level format utility but technically it is a zero fill format.... there is a major difference between low level format and zero fill. There is absolutely no way you can low level format a modern drive but you can do a zero fill.
Personally, I use the Seagate DiskWizard utility on all drives regardless of mfg to do my zero fill formats. It is easy to use and works well.

[Redwolf]

1) To repartition: When the option comes up in the installation, choose to repartition yiour drive. Delete all current partitions, and make the new ones you need (usually just 1 to keep it simple, as you are using NTFS).

2) To Wipe the data off your hard drive so it can't be recovered, if that's your aim: Go to www.maxtor.com, click support, then english. Get PowerMax, and load it to a blank floppy disk (preferably a new one). Leave the disk IN THE DRIVE, and reboot the machine. When the option comes up, Zero the drive (if you choose the fill zero option, it will take a long time, so get some lunch, grab a beer, watch both Lord of the Rings movies on DVD, then watch all the special features, then go grab a midnight snack, go to sleep, wake up, go to work, come home, it should be done then ). Then reboot the machine (click exit, and shut off the machine with the switch (it's safe), and turn it back on), and remove the disk.