i recently obtained a hard drive with... lets just say a lot of extraneous information from someone else that i don't ever want. A friend of mine showed me a program to wipe the entire disk with so it would be like brand new. I fully understand the workings of wiping a disk, i just need to know about after i wipe it. I'm going to install windows XP SP2 onto it, and i need to know basically how a computer reacts when it has no OS on it. Do i need some sort of boot disk, or once it's wiped can i just stick the Windows install disk in their and install the OS. I mean i've done reinstalls and repair installs before, but I've never actually had a computer without an OS on it. I wasn't sure if it would recognize my DVD drive or if there were other possible complications/warnings/tips etc. that i would need to know.
your help, as always, is appreciated.
thank you, peace.