formatting question

[Remixx]

I am looking to format my hard drive but i dont wanna do just a quick format i wanna do a full format where i writes zeros to the entire drive, whats the best way about going about this?

 

[jjmIII]

just select full and not quick then....

look here too
http://www.dban.org/

 

[Remixx]

Windows 7 doesn't have that option for full...

 

[jjmIII]

can you hook the drive to a running pc as a slave?

Just rt click under my computer, uncheck quick format, and hit start?

 

[Remixx]

don't have another pc to hook it up to, does writing zeros put the drive back to factory defaults?

 

[RebateMonger]

Windows 7 doesn't have that option for full...

Microsoft's description of formatting an existing partition under Windows 7. This mentions the "Perform a Quick Format" option, which implies that, otherwise, it does a full format:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Create-and-format-a-hard-disk-partition

I don't see any explanation of what type of Format it uses when when formatting a brand-new partition. Worst case, if it turns out that it "Quick Formats" a new partition, then you could do that (it'll only takes seconds) and THEN reformat the partition doing a "Full Format".

 

[tcsenter]

The format tools provided by MS do not perform a disk wipe or zero write to the drive. The difference between quick and long format is a media scan.

 

[Emulex]

sdelete.exe

 

[hanspeter]

The format tools provided by MS do not perform a disk wipe or zero write to the drive.

Full format means overwriting with zeros since Vista

 

[tcsenter]

Good to know.