How to Permanently Delete Program Files from Backup Harddisk

I'm using my old harddisk from my previous computer as a backup disk. It still has the old program files folder and it takes up a lot of space. Can anyone tell me how to permanently delete the whole folder? I'm only able to delete a couple of subfolders...

you can use ccleaner to wipe the drive. remove the files that you want saved before using ccleaner to wipe the drive

You'll probably need to "Take Ownership" of that folder first before deleting it.

You can use this handy little registry hack from How-To-Geeks to do it. This saves a lot of step otherwise.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...menu-in-vista/

It works in Windows 7 too. Once you're able to take ownership of that folder you should be able to delete it permanently.

If you just want to wipe the entire hard drive clean and start with a fresh formatted hard drive, you can do that in the System Administration section of the Control Panel and then go to Disk Management.