jackson54321
MIS
Does anyone here have any recomendations for a utility (low cost or freeware) that I can use to erase & format Hard Drives?
Thank in advance,
JD
Thank in advance,
JD
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Drive Erasing 2
- Thread starter jackson54321
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Windows comes with a very good one, The command line "format" and/or fdisk. you can do it form start menu-> run, type in "command" without the quotes, and press return. Then type in format and the drive letter. and press return.
Of course if you want to format the drive you are running Windows from, you'll want to do that from a boot disk.
go here for Bootdisks:
A normal win 98 bootdisk contains the format and fdisk tools.
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.
Of course if you want to format the drive you are running Windows from, you'll want to do that from a boot disk.
go here for Bootdisks:
A normal win 98 bootdisk contains the format and fdisk tools.
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.
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vacunita,
Yes, that is a good way to format drives quickly, but it does not overwrite the files. All the data is still there, just the pointers have been removed. To truly erase a drive and all traces of its data there's nothing better than DBAN:
Yes, that is a good way to format drives quickly, but it does not overwrite the files. All the data is still there, just the pointers have been removed. To truly erase a drive and all traces of its data there's nothing better than DBAN:
He never said anything about wanting the files completely gone. But in case he wants the files completely gone, then i would suggest Western Digital's Drive Zeroing Software. it writes 0's to the drive so it wipes all data out.
After that, if you want to be sure its completely unrecoverable, the next step is to take a hammer to the opened drive, and smash the platters.
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.
After that, if you want to be sure its completely unrecoverable, the next step is to take a hammer to the opened drive, and smash the platters.
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.
- Thread starter
- #5
jackson54321
MIS
Excellent! Thanks guys - this info will be a huge help!
PalmerData
Technical User
Wahnula is exactly right. Fdisk simply removes the Master File Table so the sectors with data become 'unallocated'. The data is still there of course, and needs to be overwritten if you don't want it to be recoverable. Recovering from a high-level format like this is really easy.
People in Government/Military etc will tell you that the data needs to be overwritten 3 times, (used to be 7 times!), but this is nonsense. Once is enough, trust me. We are a data recovery company, so we should know, ( ).
If you want to decommission the HDD for good, and can't be bothered overwriting it, then a degausser will work just fine, but the drive will not work any more. There are loads of free zero filling tools out there, so don't pay for one.
People in Government/Military etc will tell you that the data needs to be overwritten 3 times, (used to be 7 times!), but this is nonsense. Once is enough, trust me. We are a data recovery company, so we should know, ( ).
If you want to decommission the HDD for good, and can't be bothered overwriting it, then a degausser will work just fine, but the drive will not work any more. There are loads of free zero filling tools out there, so don't pay for one.
Sleepsalot
MIS
This is an iso file you can make a CD from It has loads of great utitilties. And best of all it is free.
Wayne
Life is a big Roleplaying adventure.
Wayne
Wayne
Life is a big Roleplaying adventure.
Wayne
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