Pass the password and there's more

Question

Have XP Professional SP3 computer(s) that were taken out of service and need to have Hard Drives wiped so they may be put into personal/private use. No longer have correct passwords to open Windows. How do I access the system to clean it up?

Answer 1

You do not need to access the system in order to wipe it. (In fact I don't think Windows even lets you delete itself...)

• If the drives contain sensitive information, use a LiveCD with tools such as DBAN, shred, wipe, or scrub. (Check your local legal requirements, but I'm sure just dumping all files to Recycle Bin is not considered sufficient.)

• Otherwise, just delete the C: partition and create/format a new one during OS re-installation.

Note that this site has dozens of threads about resetting Windows passwords; please search.

Answer 2

Just deleting the data from the drives will not stop people from retrieving the data, depending on the workplace environment and data security this may not be sufficient, If you need to wipe the harddrive, use a DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) CD to wipe all data off the harddrive on the PC's, you can be pretty sure that no data will be left on the device for you to start from fresh for personal / private use.

Afterwards you would need to re-install the relevant OS for the PC or get the users to install their own OS onto the machines.

Answer 3

There is no need in resetting or learning the password because you can't wipe the drive that the OS is currently using. Windows won't allow it.

You can plug in the Hard Drives and wipe the drives with any OS. To do it then and there on the XP, you may be able to use any Windows installation disk so one may format their drives with either the installer or Windows utility called diskpart. The Installer will not be capable of doing a thorough format (for unrecoverable data) in deleting partitions by itself, you can use the diskpart tool with Windows Installation for that.

This will only work if there is one drive in the computer. If you want to wipe the drive to make all files unrecoverable you use diskpart. This is only found in Windows Installer Vista and older. Press Shift+F10 after you press "Install" for the first time after it boots. A command prompt will show. Run these in order: In it type diskpart. Once loaded run: sel disk 0 to select the disk; clean all to completely format the drive (may take an hour). Now it should be complete. However if there are more than one drives, you need to judge which drives you want to format (if all then it doesn't matter); you may look by using list disk and changing the numeral, use sel disk <num>. If you are using diskpart and don't want to wipe thoroughly you may use clean without setting all the bits to zero. After using, enter exit, then exit again.

If you do decide to place it into its "new home" and then decide to wipe with Windows as a non-primary hard drive, you may use an Administrator's Command Prompt, and follow the directions above. You would want to analyze the disks with the commands mentioned above, you do not want to format anything that you want to keep. Also, if done this way, and using Windows, you may use "Disk Management" as provided by Windows Operating Systems. Its verbiage is similar to that of "diskpart" when using this interface.

Of course you can use more advanced tools as listed by other answers with special bootable Operating Systems. But if you plan on using Windows for installation, this answer would be the most convenient in answering.