how to really wipe a HD?

[dbarton]

I have two drives that when I try to use them with Drive Copy, I get an error that says that EZ BIOS os on the drives. A third one works fine with this setup.

I tried wiping the drives with fdisk - and even fdisk /mbr - but after formatting these drives just wont work without that error.

Is it possible I need something like a low level format, and if so, what program will let me do that?

(I tried these on an XP machine and a Win95 machine and they just seem to be stuck..)

 

[Bacinator]

Sounds like Maxtor drives, and you would probably have to use MaxBlast software to disabled the EZ Bios function of the drives...

 

[dbarton]

They are indeed both Maxtor drives!!

Must be an issue you are familair with.

I will look for Maxblast and see what I can do with that

 

[Bacinator]

MaxBlast 3

 

[redbeard1]

Some of the drive management software programs write themselves to an address that the fdisk/mbr command can't get at. In the old days, there were a couple of these programs, that needed the exact version of software that created the partition, to remove them.

I've successfully removed a couple of these with partition magic.

 

[Bacinator]

MaxBlast 3 is supposed to be compatible with previous maxblast installations. I remember recently seeing an EZBIOS tool while in v3, and from there you should be able to convert and remove, or at least remove.

Maxtor's definition of EZBIOS:
The EZBIOS software supplies translation to the BIOS which requires little or no overhead.

 

[tcsenter]

I tried wiping the drives with fdisk - and even fdisk /mbr - but after formatting these drives just wont work without that error.

Is it possible I need something like a low level format, and if so, what program will let me do that?

FDISK won't get rid of the drive overlay structures, only a zero-write (LLF) utility will do that, or the drive overlay setup/uninstall program.

Use Maxtor's Powermax utility. Run the file in Windows to extract the Powermax utility to a diskette, then boot from the diskette. This self-extractor will create the boot diskette with all necessary files and run automatically.

Select 'Write Disk Pack (low level format)' option. This will 'wipe' everything and restore your HDD to the state it was in when it left the factory. Depending on the capacity of your HDD and your processor speed, it may take anywhere from two to five hours to wipe your drive, so don't expect this to be a 20 minute thing.

When the LLF is complete, reboot with a standard boot disk, then use FDISK (or preferred partitioning utility) to partition your HDD. Then FORMAT, yadda yadda, so on and so forth....

 

[dbarton]

Thanks very much - will do all that.

My other related problem is that I want to clone a Maxtor drive..

When I try Drive Copy on that, it fails and says it has EZ bios on the *source* drive. Not much I can do to remove that.. I don't recall eve using ez bios, but whatever..

Any programs able to clone that drive?

 

[redbeard1]

Ghost can clone just about anything. Partition magic should be able to remove the ezbios thing, if powermax can't do it.

 

[dbarton]

Originally posted by: redbeard1
Ghost can clone just about anything. Partition magic should be able to remove the ezbios thing, if powermax can't do it.

Well Powermax is only useable to remove EZ bios from the destination drive, *not* the source drive.

 

[tcsenter]

Thanks very much - will do all that.

My other related problem is that I want to clone a Maxtor drive..

When I try Drive Copy on that, it fails and says it has EZ bios on the *source* drive. Not much I can do to remove that.. I don't recall eve using ez bios, but whatever..

Any programs able to clone that drive?

Ghost is your utility. I also see that MaxBlast has a Zero Write (LLF) feature, so it is not necessary to use PowerMax if you already have MaxBlast.

You can try downloading Maxtor's MaxBlast, create the MaxBlast diskette, boot your system with the diskette, select 'Maintenance' options, disable EZ-BIOS first, then uninstall/remove it.

If the DDO structures were created with an older version of EZ-BIOS, it may be necessary to first convert the code to MaxBlast v3 DDO code before it may be removed/disabled by MaxBlast 3.

Answer ID 1358: This article describes the steps to replace all previous versions of MaxBlast EZ-BIOS overlay software with MaxBlast 3 DDO overlay. The conversion can be performed from the MaxBlast 3 CD or floppy.

Note: It is highly recommended to have a full backup of your data first before converting the drive.

Boot the system directly to the MaxBlast 3 floppy, select the maintenance options button from the main menu.

Select the button next to convert "Existing BIOS overlay", then choose next. If this selection is greyed out that means that EZ-BIOS or any other disk overlay is not installed on the drive.

When finished, remove the MaxBlast 3 CD or Floppy and reboot the system into Windows.

Answer ID 1360: This procedure describes how to remove the MaxBlast 3 Dynamic Drive Overlay (DDO)

Moving the drive to a new system: With the drive still in the old system, boot to the MaxBlast 3 CD or Floppy and choose the Maintenance Options. Select the upgrade MaxBlast 3 option to upgrade from any older versions of the DDO. The DDO must be current before flashing the BIOS or moving to a new system.

When finished upgrading, boot the system into Window's to make sure the DDO upgraded properly. After booting into Window's perform a normal shut down.

Remove the drive and install it into the new system. Auto-Detect the drive in the new systems BIOS.

Boot your system to the MaxBlast 3 program and select Maintenance Options, then choose the Remove Dynamic Drive Overlay option and click next.

When finished remove the MaxBlast CD, or Floppy and power cycle the system. Restart system and boot into Windows.

Also see:

Solution: Error 89 EZ-Drive has been detected on drive, but EZ-Drive is not running

Solution: Error 90 EZ-Drive has been detected on drive, but EZ-Drive is corrupt