whats the best way to format a HD

[UDT89]

im selling two HD and i need to erase the data, whats the best and easiest way?

 

[Fern]

You might do a "zero-fill" or low-level format. This writes zero's to your HD. Many of the HDD manufacturer's offer such proggies for d/l at their site.

But AFAIK, it still WONT be impossible for someone to recover the data. But I don't think your average pc user would be able get any data off it.

Fern

 

[UDT89]

is there someway to hook them up to my PC and do it in DOS?

 

[jackschmittusa]

Manufacturer's utilities and most of the free ones run from DOS to do the "0" writes.

 

[montag451]

recommended to overwrite at least 3 times just to stop a normal restorer proggy/disk editor not to be able to get much off it.

How much is the info on the hdd worth to you?
Is it more than the asking price?

if you haven't been conspiring to lead a group of mercenaries into guantanamo bay, or have the details of your last 5 years shiploads of cocaine, then i wouldn't worry too much

 

[UDT89]

my biggest issue is hooking the HD up to my PC. I always have bad luck with it getting recognized.

 

[Tarrant64]

make sure the master/slave jumpers(pins??) are set correctly for each hard drive. there should be a chart on each HD that specifies where the jumpers are to be set for master or slave. or, use cable select(i don't like it though, never really worked for me).

 

[montag451]

if you do use cable select, make sure you use cable select on both drives and ONLY on the secondary IDE channel - not where you boot hdd is