Best method to clean a HD

My D drive is full. It is a second HD and contains various files I no longer
need.

What's the best way to clean it? Delete everything!
As an old DOS fan, I'd love to use D:\ del *.* if that would work. (I've
always wanted to do that)

--
Dell Deminsion 8250
Win XP Home SP2

Inspiron 9000
Win XP Media SP2

wxrr wrote:
> My D drive is full. It is a second HD and contains various files I no longer
> need.
>
> What's the best way to clean it? Delete everything!
> As an old DOS fan, I'd love to use D:\ del *.* if that would work. (I've
> always wanted to do that)
>


The Del command would work from the command prompt, but it's be just as
easy to use the Disk Management to format the partition.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

wxrr wrote:
> My D drive is full. It is a second HD and contains various files I
> no longer need.
>
> What's the best way to clean it? Delete everything!
> As an old DOS fan, I'd love to use D:\ del *.* if that would work.
> (I've always wanted to do that)

Your Command Prompt should be able to do the old DOS command if you like...
Given this is a place for data and not application installs...

You could also use Disk Manager to format it...

Or you could - in Windows Explorer/My Computer - right-click on the drive
and choose "Format..."...

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 12:25:01 -0800, wxrr
<wxrr@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

> My D drive is full. It is a second HD and contains various files I no longer
> need.
>
> What's the best way to clean it? Delete everything!
> As an old DOS fan, I'd love to use D:\ del *.* if that would work. (I've
> always wanted to do that)


Is there nothing on it you want to keep? Then there is no "best" way.
You've already gotten several suggestions, and they are all fine: you
can delete the files from a command prompt, select all the files and
press delete in Windows explorer, or just format the drive. Do
whatever is most comfortable for you. It doesn't matter.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

"wxrr" <wxrr@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:EF8A3A75-CBA8-4AC6-AC17-3788F4B246F8@microsoft.com...
> My D drive is full. It is a second HD and contains various files I no
> longer
> need.
>
> What's the best way to clean it? Delete everything!
> As an old DOS fan, I'd love to use D:\ del *.* if that would work. (I've
> always wanted to do that)
>
> --
> Dell Deminsion 8250
> Win XP Home SP2
>
> Inspiron 9000
> Win XP Media SP2

If you're insistent on using msdos, try deltree of the root directory. Use
the switch "/y" in syntax for the command to unconditionally delete all.
Assuming you're referring to FAT32 partition, you have to use a version of
msdos that recognizes that. XP does not have the deltree command. Del
command does not delete directories/folders.

Myself in your situation in XP? Would remove the partition entirely and
create new one and format it NTFS.
--
Dave