text: how do i crash or clear the hard drive on a compaq presario?   assuming you want to format (clear) the harddrive, the first thing you will need to do is create a boot disk.  once you have the boot disc created you will beable to start the computer from the boot disc and then run the format program.  more specifically, if you have a windows disc (cd) you already have anything you need.  simply pop in that cd, make sure the system starts from the cd drive (may have to alter bios settings to make this happen. hitting f10 or some other key combination while the computer is starting will get you to the bios setting screen).  this should allow you to drop down to a dos prompt and from that prompt you can run the format.   alternately, if you have a windows cd or recovery cd, you could use it to do all the work for you.  most of them will give you an option to do a destructive install which is basically a format and re-install of windows.  this might be the easiest option for you.   hope this helps.