D: partition two [hp recover]
This will reset your hard drive to the factory settings. You will loose any data, pictures documents and so on, if you choose that.
Also could I just buy a new hard drive and then access my current hard drive as an external hard drive later?
Yes that is an option. If you have files you don't want to loose this may be what you need to do. BUT. The files might already be gone so it could be a futile effort.
