Wiping the whole hard drive blank

nick6999
nick6999 Member Posts: 3 New User
in 2014 Archives

I have an Acer Aspire 5720 with Vista Home Premium loaded.  I would LIKE to securely wipe the whole hard drive completely and utterly blank thus destroying all data and partitions (obviously including the hidden one too).  I would then like to repartition the hard drive and install Vista Business.  I have previously blanked HDD's and installed Windows clean many times.

 

I have a Microsoft copy of Vista Business and as I discovered on my HP laptop yesterday (for which I have no HP disks..), this copy does NOT load the SATA AHCI driver - I only discovered this by chance when I enabled 'SATA Native state' in the BIOS and then found that Vista Business would not load and instead, the computer cycled through the POST to a black screen prior to the Microsoft logo then went back to the beginning of POST again and so on, round and round.  Disabling SATA Native state in BIOS stopped this and Vista loaded normally.  Oddly, a second HP computer (same model) loaded from the same copy of Vista without a hitch and in Device Manager, I saw what seemed to be evidence of a simple AHCI driver having loaded.  A period of frustration (think Tasmanian Devil in Roadrunner cartoons) led me to discover that the first HDD was SATA I whereas the second was SATA II (using Speccy, both recent 2nd hand purchases).  Why Vista interacted with the two differently I do not know.

 

Back to the Acer 5720 - Speccy reveals this has a SATA II HDD.  I have never had any factory disks for it but have made my own now using eRecovery.

 

If I wipe the Acer HDD securely blank, I presume the factory reset disk that I have made doesn't contain a full install of any Windows OS and so becomes worthless to me (I made it as a security blanket..I felt good).  If I use the Microsoft disk that I have to newly load Vista Business, I fear that the SATA AHCI driver might not load.  It might - because this HDD is SATA II and the HP SATA II loaded as stated - but it might not.  So - I note on a download page elsewhere on the Acer site (http://support.acer.com/us/en/product/default.aspx?tab=1&modelId=548) that there is a SATA download for the Aspire 5720.  Is this the AHCI driver that I need to load at the stage of loading Vista Business where I am confronted by the 'unallocated space' screen (the HDD has yet to be formatted) and down the bottom there is a button which states 'load driver?'

 

Sorry to be so verbose but I don't want to be left with a blank HDD which won't load anything because the AHCI driver is missing and I can't reinstall Vista Home Premium from the factory reset disks because I have destroyed the hidden partition and/or the factory reset disk doesn't contain a full copy of Home Premium.

 

I would appreciate any advice from those who have done this please - thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • acerfan
    acerfan Member Posts: 76

    Tinkerer
    Answer ✓

    i think the is the ahci driver you need

    http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18668&ProdId=2791&lang=eng&OSVersion=Windows%20Vista%2064*&DownloadType=

     

    you should try to install vista without ahci driver first, make sure you have ahci mode enabled in the bios

     

     

  • nick6999
    nick6999 Member Posts: 3 New User

    Hi - yes, thank you - that is what I need - although I note that the instructions state PREinstall this driver before Windows.

  • nick6999
    nick6999 Member Posts: 3 New User

    ...however, on now rereading my original post, I note that the SATA II drive on my HP AUTOMATICALLY loaded a simple AHCI driver..and the Acer has a SATA II drive too - hence despite what the MIcrosoft website states, I shall indeed load Windows FIRST in the expectation that a simple AHCI driver will be loaded and then I will gifure whether that driver needs to be updated with a more specific driver afterwards (although I have yet to figure out how to do this).

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