hard drive help

[xstreme250]

hello i'm new to computer repair.trying to learn all the how to's.i recently received a tower with a bad mobo.i salvaged all the goodies,including a hard drive.need to know how to check to see if its in working order.if indeed it is good,can someone tell me how to wipe it clean.i have a dell dimension 2400 desktop.please let me know if its as simple as connecting it to my working computer.or if there is more to it.please help as i am trying to learn as much as i can about computers.thank you western digital model wd800db-00fjao. the tower the drive came out of had windows xp for an o.s..

 

[ssc456]

u have 2 options u have either add the hardrive as a slave and boot into windows as normal and use cmd to format it i think it wud be

cd D:
format

and that shud do it or u cud use 3rd party tools like partion magic or u may even be able to right click the drive in my computer and click format.

the second and simplest way assuming u have a windows xp disk is to put the drive into your comp and boot into a windows disk and use the format tool on there