Need laptop help

[SaVas]

I bought a very inexpensive laptop (as is) from a going out of business sale (you would think they would wipe their harddrives, but in the case of this one, they didnt). On the laptop is quite a bit of company information LOL, including their network logons, and trend micro office scanning, etc. Unfortunately password and such are still there.

I can get a 40 gig HD for it for about $70 (presently it has a 12 gig HD), and was wondering if I replace the HD, then that basically wipes out everything on the laptop right? Its not stored on the motherboard.

So my question is, if I install a new HD on it, then I can install windows 2000, and MS office etc, basically getting a fresh new laptop correct?

Thanks

---Stephen

[Iroquois]

Yep. My dad just got a Laptop that was originally the store's demo model. They took it and erased the hard drive and put Windows back on it. Works great.

A laptop is basically just a small desktop. Stuff in the small world works the same way as it does in the big world. The only things stored on the mobo are the BIOS files.

[Jared]

Roger that old pal, no problem there...;-)

[Gixer]

Cant you just use a program like 'KillDisk'  you only get one pass but I am sure that would destroy eveything on the existing drive no probs.  

Get rid of all the partitions first (If there are any) then run 'KillDisk' and sit and wait.  It takes a while to do but should kill the lot.  ;D

[Jared]

I'm thinking he might also be trying to get a bigger drive into the rig so that he would be able to put more than the basic files on it...:-)

[Jared]

Else if:

we are trying to just get rid of all previous information, a full-format through Windows XP start-up will take care of that as well..:-)