Of course one of the most important things to understand as a newbie in the crypto space is how to secure your digital assets. Therefore I decided to give air gapping a try In other to understand air gapping I tried air gapping an old Windows PC today since I didn't know a lot of technical stuff about the internal components of the computer I decided to uninstall all network drivers on the computer I tried doing this from my windows control panel.
Will this still count as an air-gapped device or do I still have to remove the hardware networking components from the PC board?
And will it be possible for a hacker to install those drivers remotely?
Yes, if you disconnect your PC from the outer world then it will become air-gapped. According to the definition of an air gap device, it should not be connected to the outer world, directly or indirectly. So, you have to make that PC air-gapped but if you were using the same PC while connecting it to the internet then I prefer you to uninstall this window or maybe buy a new HDD or SDD but that's not compulsory.
After that, install a new operating system. Try not to install Windows OS as it is vulnerable to scams and hacks. And I don't think the deletion of network drivers is necessary but that is a good practice to do, just in case. I am also not a technical dude who works at geekforgeeks but after learning from some tutorials you will be able to make an airgap device at home easily. But according to my knowledge, the hard part is to keep that air gap device disconnected from the outside world.