Formating a hard disk.
Friday, November 14, 2003 by Apocalypse_67 | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
Anyone knows how to delete/format a hard disk.
I could format it with the boot disk, but I want to compleately erase every bit of information in it. In other words, I want to leave the disk as if it just came out of the box
I know there was a thread about this not long ago, but I cant find it >
Thankx for the help.
I could format it with the boot disk, but I want to compleately erase every bit of information in it. In other words, I want to leave the disk as if it just came out of the box
I know there was a thread about this not long ago, but I cant find it >
Thankx for the help.
Apocalypse_67
Reply #2 Friday, November 14, 2003 11:43 PM
Reply #2 Friday, November 14, 2003 11:43 PM
Thankx for the link China.... I like the blow torch idea better 
yrag
Reply #4 Friday, November 14, 2003 11:47 PM
Reply #4 Friday, November 14, 2003 11:47 PM
Blow torch!!!
You can go to the site of your hard drive maker and download a floppy file that will 'low-level' format your drive...that's what the factory does before it ships.
You can go to the site of your hard drive maker and download a floppy file that will 'low-level' format your drive...that's what the factory does before it ships.
Peff
Reply #5 Friday, November 14, 2003 11:54 PM
Reply #5 Friday, November 14, 2003 11:54 PM
Try this site
http://www.newfreeware.com/utils/1417/
They seem to have a lot of free utilities that will do what you need
Hope it helps
http://www.newfreeware.com/utils/1417/
They seem to have a lot of free utilities that will do what you need
Hope it helps
Sugaree
Reply #6 Friday, November 14, 2003 11:55 PM
Reply #6 Friday, November 14, 2003 11:55 PM
I happen to like the blow torch method...call me "paranoid"
Dreamdesign3d
Reply #7 Saturday, November 15, 2003 3:14 PM
Reply #7 Saturday, November 15, 2003 3:14 PM
There is a program called “Delete All” that you can download for free. Tech TV talked about it awhile back.
IPlural
Reply #8 Saturday, November 15, 2003 3:54 PM
Reply #8 Saturday, November 15, 2003 3:54 PM
do what yrag suggests...
or you could run an app that works 99.9% of the time and ends up killing your drive that odd time around...
Stick with factory utilities for hardware such as IDE drives when possible...
or you could run an app that works 99.9% of the time and ends up killing your drive that odd time around...
Stick with factory utilities for hardware such as IDE drives when possible...
Weaksid
Reply #10 Saturday, November 15, 2003 4:06 PM
Reply #10 Saturday, November 15, 2003 4:06 PM
I reread what you typed. You basically want it non-formated but erased So you would have to format it after you erase everything. Because most drives when you get them aren't formated. At least most/all my new drives weren't.
bordfryr
Reply #11 Saturday, November 15, 2003 4:59 PM
Reply #11 Saturday, November 15, 2003 4:59 PM
A hard drive cannot simply be erased. It must be written over at least 3 times.http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,110338,00.asp
There are plenty of free programs (like BCWIPE) that will do that.
There are plenty of free programs (like BCWIPE) that will do that.
IPlural
Reply #13 Saturday, November 15, 2003 7:17 PM
Reply #13 Saturday, November 15, 2003 7:17 PM
I think it is pretty much obvious that He does want to format the drive when the topic of the thread is "Formating a Hard Disk" sheesh
Weaksid
Reply #14 Saturday, November 15, 2003 7:29 PM
Reply #14 Saturday, November 15, 2003 7:29 PM
But to format it to what? FAT 32 or NTFS? But completely clean. Now usually you or I had to format the harddrive to work right. This is called FDisking. You have to do this for the system to work right.
Weaksid Needs more details. Input Input Input Input Input
Weaksid Needs more details. Input Input Input Input Input
Shameless Designs
Reply #15 Saturday, November 15, 2003 7:39 PM
Reply #15 Saturday, November 15, 2003 7:39 PM
Echoing Weaksid, especially if you are formatting to NTFS, and even more critically, NTFS under WinXP, you need to FDisk or risk winding up with unmountable boot volumes or other nasty errors.
Also don't know if you want to wipe for security reasons or anything, but if you want to make sure nothing can be recovered from the previously stored data you will need some type of shredder or wipe utility that will overwrite the data several times before formatting.
[Message Edited]
Also don't know if you want to wipe for security reasons or anything, but if you want to make sure nothing can be recovered from the previously stored data you will need some type of shredder or wipe utility that will overwrite the data several times before formatting.
[Message Edited]
Apocalypse_67
Reply #16 Saturday, November 15, 2003 10:33 PM
Reply #16 Saturday, November 15, 2003 10:33 PM
Ok. It took me the entire night last night and the entire day today to do everything I wanted to do with my PC.
I did a major upgrade to it and I'm giving away my old hard disk. That is the reson why I wanted to wipe out the entire disk. The Killdisk program I got from China's link did the job, but just to make sure, I also used WipeDrive.
I tried to look for a file to 'low-level' the disk but I couldnt find any in the WD site.
I did a (1) pass overwrite with Killdisk and a (3) pass overwrite with WipeDrive.
Thank you all for the help and inputs.
I did a major upgrade to it and I'm giving away my old hard disk. That is the reson why I wanted to wipe out the entire disk. The Killdisk program I got from China's link did the job, but just to make sure, I also used WipeDrive.
I tried to look for a file to 'low-level' the disk but I couldnt find any in the WD site.
I did a (1) pass overwrite with Killdisk and a (3) pass overwrite with WipeDrive.
Thank you all for the help and inputs.
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Reply #1 Friday, November 14, 2003 11:41 PM