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General discussion

install a used hard drive

Jan 15, 2011 6:28PM PST

my IBM Thinkpad T30 hard drive was infected (internet explorer bar said "hacked by Godzilla")so I am trying to install an old hard drive I got from a friend (cant afford new one), not sure how to. I need to reformat the hard drive first? If so how do I do that? running windows XP.
Thanks

Discussion is locked

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Questions first . . .
Jan 15, 2011 9:04PM PST

Does the PC have the recovery partition? If so use it. Have you tried to fix the problem? Do you have and anti-virus running? Fixing will be easier than replacing the hard drive.

To replace the drive you do not need to format it first. But you do need a valid copy of XP. Do you have this? If so you will remove the old drive and insert the new drive. You then insert the XP CD and power up the laptop, boot from the CD. You may have to go into the BIOS and set the boot order to CD then HD. Follow the screen prompts to format then install XP.

But remember this. You will need drivers for audio, video, NIC, etc. for all the hardware on the laptop as XP will not have them.

If you have the recovery partition on the HD or the recovery CDs (if you made them), this is easier and faster than replacing the HD.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=1&oq=hacked+by+Godzilla&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS385US385&q=hacked+by+godzilla+fix

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Assuming that the media to reinstall is at hand
Jan 15, 2011 9:14PM PST

Be sure to save any data from the infected drive. Placing that old drive in any other computer to retrieve the data may infect the other host. You could try this;
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/
Do not fret about the Vista comment in the link as this will work with any Windows OS. Save the data on a CD\DVD. Of course, at this point you could just wipe out the existing drive and reinstall on that. Either way, reformat either drive. If you want to make sure nothing from whatever may be on the drive exists before reinstalling, see this;http://forums.cnet.com/7723-6130_102-66200.html

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Follow what the other posters wrote
Jan 22, 2011 6:08AM PST

.. or install Linux and save yourself a lot of time Happy

Just check on Google for 'How to install Linux' or 'How to install Ubuntu'

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Re: installing Linux
Jan 22, 2011 6:50AM PST

Yes, installing Linux saves a lot of time. All favorite games that run on Windows don't run on Linux. So you can spend all the time you used to spend on playing games on other more useful things, such as learning Linux. Great idea!

Kees