Some help with OS's and new starts.

[Radec]

Hello.
I'm very new to PC's and would love some info!

Basically my friend has 2 PC's, one broke, and I offered to buy it from him.
It has an I5 3570k. It looked like a problem with the PSU, so I replaced that and it actually worked.
I booted up the PC and it's running windows 7 ultimate, but it's full with junk, and on boot up it says it has to check for disk consistency.

Also, when I bought the PC, my friend gave me his copy of Windows 8 pro, not sure if he's used it, so I don't know if I can use it.

Anyway my question:

I want to wipe this PC, completely.
What would be the best way?
I think I might buy W7 or W8, ive heard somewhere that with W7 its locked to the mobo, but with w8, you're free to carry it on with a whole new PC build.

If that's true about W8, is it possible for me to install the W8 pro he gave me with the PC, but meaning it'll be (deactivated) from it's prev use?

Sorry if I'm confusing, but i'm not sure how to 100% wipe, and which OS does what.

Any help I would appreciate very much, thanks.

 

[Shadz]

The easyest way to do it if you dont want any of the information off the system is to
put the Windows 8 disk in the PC, restart the PC and change the boot order so it will
read the DVD drive before anything else, this will then cause the system to go into the
Windows 8 setup, go through all the instructions on screen and when you get to the part
about choosing your disk drive there will be an option to format the drive 1st do this and
then install onto that drive and it will be a fresh install without any of the other info from
the previous installation of Windows 7.

After you have done this and you are in Windows just make sure you go back and change
the boot order of the PC so that your HDD is listed 1st in the boot order otherwise it will
always try and boot from the DVD drive before the hard drive and this will slow down
your boot speeds.

I hope this helps you out a bit mate.

P.S. Even if the Windows 8 disk has already been used as long as that CD Key is not being
used on any other PC at the minute then you should have no problems activating the
install if you do though you can always by yourself a copy and put your new CD key in
without having to re-install again.

 

[bledd]

The hard drive may well need replacing. Run chkdsk and see how it behaves.

Typically once they start needing chkdsk scans ;they're on the way out.

It may just want one a scan because of issues brought on by the bad power supply.

 

[Radec]

Thanks for the comments, I will try this now.

If the hard drive continues to play up I will just have to replace it I guess.
Although I'm not sure how the W8 os seems to work.

Apparently my mate used it for his second PC before reinstalling W7, but the key was accepted on mine, it's a legit copy too.