Erase A HDD for sale?

[CrowDog]

Have a 20gig Maxtor I took out and replaced. Now Im looking to sell it. I never reformatted or anything when I took it out. How do I completley erase it so it can be sold?

 

[RyanM]

Hard drives are like etch-a-sketches. All ya gotta do is hold them upside down and shake vigorously.

I'M KIDDING, don't do that.

Anyways, seriously though. Pop it back in your system, create a Windows boot disk, and copy format.com to it. Then reboot, go to the command line, and format the drive. That's not the only method, but it's the one I've been doing for years, and I'm too lazy to learn the others. Just make sure that the drive you format is the drive you WANT to format.

Good luck.

 

[BmXStuD]

1.Go to makers website
2. Find the program that will write 0's to it and use that program to FORMAT it back to the way that the MANF. formatted it .(low format i think)

 

[eklass]

i believe the official US military "safe" formatting includes writing the entire drive to 0's, F's, then 0's again... just find some software specifically for it... also, i do believe this is the difference between format and quick format... as in, write all to 0 or mark as unneeded

 

[StraightPipe]

a low format is the way to go (makes all '0's)
a quick format just erases the pointers

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: eklass
i believe the official US military "safe" formatting includes writing the entire drive to 0's, F's, then 0's again... just find some software specifically for it... also, i do believe this is the difference between format and quick format... as in, write all to 0 or mark as unneeded

It has to do it something like 7 times to meet the guidelines of the CIA or FBI or somebody like that.

Just formatting it will do nothing except wipe out the FAT, the files are still there and recoverable, you are best off finding a program that will write zeros to the drive.

 

[paralazarguer]

Data can be recovered on hard drives from up to eight layers deep. (magnetic patterns). That's eight low level formats.

 

[John]

Originally posted by: CrowDog
Have a 20gig Maxtor I took out and replaced. Now Im looking to sell it. I never reformatted or anything when I took it out. How do I completley erase it so it can be sold?

format c: /q /u

 

[RyanM]

A low-level format is only necessary if he had stored sensitive data on the drive. If he doesn't care who knows what kind of porn he liked and who he plans on assassinating, then that's not necessary.

On the other hand, if you've got your sites on taking down a world leader and 13 year old boys are your bag, I would suggest throwing the drive away. Into an incinerator.

 

[paralazarguer]

A low-level format is only necessary if he had stored sensitive data on the drive. If he doesn't care who knows what kind of porn he liked and who he plans on assassinating, then that's not necessary.

If he didn't care who saw his data why would he be asking how to get rid of it before selling it?

 

[oldfart]

Killdisk is a freeware utility that will write all 0's to any drive (low level format).

 

[Afro000Dude]

What's the difference between low and high level formatting?

 

[CrowDog]

Originally posted by: paralazarguer

A low-level format is only necessary if he had stored sensitive data on the drive. If he doesn't care who knows what kind of porn he liked and who he plans on assassinating, then that's not necessary.

If he didn't care who saw his data why would he be asking how to get rid of it before selling it?

all that they will get is windows xp, some installed games and mp3s....I would prefer to just sell it like that without putting it back in and dealing with it. I just thought it was a standard to erase everything first....

 

[RyanM]

It is in most cases. That way, it will save them the trouble of having to reformat it once they get it. If you don't care about them ressurrecting your data, just hook it up and do a quick format.

 

[andrey]

do you guys really believe someone will be buying 20Gb hard drive with the purpose of recovering what's there and is is even worth it? Just do a format C: and you're good to go. I mean seriously, don't be so paranoid!

 

[HumbleFish]

Originally posted by: oldfart
Killdisk is a freeware utility that will write all 0's to any drive (low level format).

Killdisk is the way to go.

 

[BmXStuD]

To f it up all you have to do is. UNSCREW IT AND just touch everything inside tremove the circle thing and write on it w a pen and put 0's!!!

 

[paralazarguer]

To f it up all you have to do is. UNSCREW IT AND just touch everything inside tremove the circle thing and write on it w a pen and put 0's!!!

Killdisc-the freeware version*

*screwdriver not included.

 

[erikiksaz]

I heard that there was this child pornographer with this huge magnet setup next to his computer. If the cops ever caught him, he would take his computer and walk through the two huge magnets! No evidence after the magnets wipe the hard drive!

 

[magomago]

Originally posted by: erikiksaz
I heard that there was this child pornographer with this huge magnet setup next to his computer. If the cops ever caught him, he would take his computer and walk through the two huge magnets! No evidence after the magnets wipe the hard drive!

I'll assume this tactic failed considering people heard about it.

And why would someone need to walk around their house with magnets if they had it next to their HDD? Unless instead of having one big 200 gig HDD they had 100 small 2 gig Hds dangling from their IDE cables and PSU connectors from the ceilings....

 

[erikiksaz]

Nonono. I heard the setup was like a walk-through metal detector, but with magnets on both sides. So he didn't walk around with magnets, it's just that he would pick up his computer and walk through the "metal+magnet detector."

 

[RyanM]

Unfortunately, his attempts were thwarted by EMF shielding. Chalk one up for the good guys.

 

[paralazarguer]

Yeah, that wouldn't work. The magnet would have to be an electormagnet so powerful that simply coming within feet of it would rip the computer case out of his hands and slam it against the electromagnet.
It would take a pretty big field to disrupt a harddrive inside a shielded case.
Anyway, if the cops busted him, they would be on his back by the time he knew what was going on. He wouldn't have time to unplug his computer and walk through anything with it.
I'm not too sure of either the credibility of this story or the intelligence of this pornographer. Besides, the cops have tons of evidence by the time they get a search warrant. The computer is somewhat anciallary.

 

[Bleep]

Download maxblast from maxtors website and write zeros to the drive, remember all your passwords are on there and maybe even some credit card numbers if you order on line. It will only take about 30 minutes.

Bleep

 

[m1ke101]

when I sold my hard drive I just put in the win xp cd and had it do the format from within the program (not the quick format). Should I be worried about the guy who I sold it to looking at my old data?