Erasing HD

[silverdj]

I was just curious on what the best way to completely erase a HD so that I could possibly sell it or put it in another computer. Thank you for any help that you can give.

 

[wpshooter]

Boot machine to a WIN98 floppy diskette.

Then use FDISK command and FORMAT command to redo the hard drive.

This does not make it absolutely impossible for SOMEONE THAT KNOWS HOW to get to the old info that was stored on the drive. But unless there was some sensitive or secret info on the drive, this should be sufficient.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

I do Linux testing all the time. I erase disks ALOT. By far, the best I have found is DBAN (Derik's Boot and Nuke). Very powerful, and gives you tons of choices, and is fairly quick. Plus you can do multiple drives at the same time. By far the best I have ever used.

 

[Luckyboy1]

If you are extra paranoid and have like, State sectrets on the hard drive, then you'd want to get a program like Acronis to have it copy 0's, then 1's and back and forth a few times.

If no State sectrets, just FDISK the thing and sell it.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

I suppose I will add the fact that DBAN can be as small as single pass with all 0's and no verification. Only takes about a minute a GB. Or, if your really paranoid....... or really dig the kiddie pr0n ........ then you can do a 25 pass wipe (different bit patterns) 99 times WITH verification. Dont ask me how long that takes because i dont think I would live long enough for it

 

[InlineFour]

Unless you have very sensitive information, just format it with fdisk.

 

[goobernoodles]

Honestly, I think theres got to be like 20000 threads almost exactly like this. lol

 

[silverdj]

Sorry for posting it again, I didn't search hard enough I guess. But thank you for all of the information that you have given me.

 

[furballi]

Download the free Seagate utility and run the Zero format application. Takes about one day to wipe a 300GB HDD.

 

[silverdj]

Cool, thanks for all of the info. It will be usefull and come in handy!

 

[Oyeve]

DBAN.

 

[domllama]

I use a software partition magic for most drives. It works wonders!

 

[bluestrobe]

Originally posted by: goobernoodles
Honestly, I think theres got to be like 20000 threads almost exactly like this. lol

 

[Auric]

'nutha nod to DBAN.