Formatting primary drive?

[pete6032]

I want to format my HDD before selling it. Is there any way I can just boot to the command prompt and do format c:?

Sorry for the noob question, usually when I format a drive I just pull it out and hook it up to a USB adapter and format from another computer, however this is a laptop drive with ATA interface that I don't have a USB adapter for.

 

[Bubbaleone]

Which make/model of laptop are you talking about? Does it have an optical drive?

 

[pete6032]

Its an old dell inspiron. It does have an optical drive.

 

[Bubbaleone]

Download, burn the DBAN boot disk, then boot it and wipe your drive: Darik's Boot And Nuke

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[Steltek]

You never want to just format the drive, as the files remain recoverable afterwards. DBAN will actually overwrite the drive, which takes longer, but is much more secure.

 

[fleshconsumed]

You never want to just format the drive, as the files remain recoverable afterwards. DBAN will actually overwrite the drive, which takes longer, but is much more secure.

I was under impression that windows full format writes zeroes throughout the surface, at least since Vista and later. Is it not true?

 

[Bubbaleone]

Yes but, by using data recovery software like Active@ Partition Recovery, I can easily recover data after a disk has been full formatted by Windows. Tools like DBAN offer pseudo-random, cryptographically secure algorithms rather than just over-writing data with zeroes. These type of secure disk wipe tools also allow access to areas of the HDD that a Windows full format can't touch, like the host protected area.

A Windows full format or even just a quick format is fine (generally) if all you're doing is reinstalling or want to repurpose a system drive for use as storage, for example. The OP is selling the laptop and didn't want his data to be forensically recoverable which is the purpose for using DBAN.

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[fleshconsumed]

I'm kind of skeptical. What's so fundamentally different about overwriting drive with zeros vs random pattern of 0's and 1's?

I found this for what it's worth
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2048133
http://www.hostjury.com/blog/view/195/the-great-zero-challenge-remains-unaccepted