How to delete Vista

January 8, 2008 1:12 AM

How can I wipe my hard drive and delete Vista (so I can install another copy of Vista)? oh - DBAN isn't working.

I bought a computer (samsung magic station amd athlon dual core) that came pre-loaded with Vista--in Korean. I want to delete it and replace it with a copy of Vista in English.

I have no idea how to do this and am not a computer guy. I've tried DBAN, which failed.

Hope me?

posted by Joseph Gurl to Technology (7 answers total)

Put in your new Vista disk, and boot off it. Once you are inside the install environment, you will be able to delete the partition containing your current install, and remake an empty one in its place. Setup will then format the partition, and proceed to install Windows on it.

Why would you need DBAN?
posted by tracert at 1:30 AM on January 8, 2008

Ah, just to be clear, step 0 of that is "obtain English language Vista disk".
posted by tracert at 1:32 AM on January 8, 2008

Response by poster: Can I delete it *before* "step 0"?
posted by Joseph Gurl at 1:37 AM on January 8, 2008

I guess, but then you would have no operating system at all. In that case, you still don't really need DBAN (unless you really do need a secure erase). You can use any Linux partition manager with NTFS support. I like GParted. The procedure is still the same. Boot off your chosen disk, wipe out drive partitions, and if you want, remake them (though, again, the Windows disk you eventually install from will able to do all this for you).

But why even do it if you have no replacement operating system to install?
posted by tracert at 1:45 AM on January 8, 2008

Response by poster: Well I got it -- the DBAN Beta from last April is working, apparently.

Thanks for the help, tracert, and sorry to have changed the question on you.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:27 AM on January 8, 2008

If you have Vista Ultimate, you don't have to. Install the Ultimate Extras and there you get all the language translations.
posted by mphuie at 9:14 AM on January 8, 2008

Response by poster: DBAN beta from April '07 has a DOD short wipe option that worked. It took about seven hours, but everything is now working well and in English, yee haw.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:39 PM on January 8, 2008