Wiping a hard drive clean

John Z

John Z

if you will
So what is the best way of wiping a hard drive clean? A friend of mine wants to get rid of, or donate, a computer, but she doesn't want any of her data to go with it. I know that simply deleting files doesn't remove them; you should overwrite those files to truly delete them. So what is an easy way to do that? I remember the c:\format command, but does that do the trick? Do you just open a DOS prompt in Windows and type that? :confused:
 
mainman

mainman

Set Trippin
Originally posted by John Z
So what is the best way of wiping a hard drive clean? A friend of mine wants to get rid of, or donate, a computer, but she doesn't want any of her data to go with it. I know that simply deleting files doesn't remove them; you should overwrite those files to truly delete them. So what is an easy way to do that? I remember the c:\format command, but does that do the trick? Do you just open a DOS prompt in Windows and type that? :confused:
Click to expand...

You should debug first, that will def. do it...
Here are the instructions:
Instructions for Debugging a Hard Drive

Note: If you are debugging a drive due to a possible virus DO NOT SKIP ANY STEPS to insure virus is completely removed from the drive.

1) Boot to a Dos Bootable disk.
2) Type : DEBUG[Enter]

(Type the following EXACTLY as you see it. You only type what begins with a letter.)

-F 200 L1000 0 (ENTER)
-A CS:100 (ENTER)
xxxx:0100 MOV AX,301 (ENTER)
xxxx:0103 MOV BX,200 (ENTER)
xxxx:0106 MOV CX,1 (ENTER)
xxxx:0109 MOV DX,80 (ENTER)
xxxx:010C INT 13 (ENTER)
xxxx:010E INT 20 (ENTER)
xxxx:0110 (ENTER) <---BLANK LINE - IMPORTANT! >
-G (ENTER)
Program terminated normally -(CTRL)(ALT)(DEL)

3) Type: FDISK[Enter]

a. Do you wish to enable Large Disk Support : YES
b. Chose Option 1: Create Primary/Extended Partition or Logical Dos Drive
c. Chose Option 1: Create Primary DOS Partition
d. Use Maximum size allowed. (Yes)

4) REBOOT

5) Type: FDISK /MBR[Enter]
This takes you right back to an A:>

6) REBOOT

9) Type: FORMAT C:[Enter] (When you see the warning that data will be erased, hit yes, all data is already gone.)

10) Reinstall OS
 
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J

justhangn

Guest
Seek out a utility called "Norton Wipedisk".

It over writes every sector on the drive with the hexadecimal equivalent of F6.
 
vraiblonde

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
Why can't you just reformat the hard drive and reload the OS? Doesn't that get rid of everything?
 
LPMEDIC

LPMEDIC

Doin the duty for you....
just be careful if you clear it out. You need to make sure you have all of your device drivers handy or you may be in trouble.
 
Kyle

Kyle

ULTRA-F###ING-MAGA!
PREMO Member
Originally posted by vraiblonde
Why can't you just reformat the hard drive and reload the OS? Doesn't that get rid of everything?
Click to expand...
Not always. Data could be recovered, even on a disk that was repartitioned and formatted, by someone who wanted to.

The debug is probably the best way to go without buying software.
 
H

Heretic

Guest
There are some freeware programs out there that overwrite files with random patterns of 1's and 0's deletes it and starts over again as many times as you specify. I can think of one called shreader and another called eraser.

Last time I saw it in a magazine the NSA over writes a file 7 times, degausses the disk, crushes the disk with a bulldozer and then buries it in a restricted access landfill.

It is possible that you reformat your hard drive and throw it into the ocean and 1000 years from now that someone can recover information from it. You would be suprised what can be recovered if you work at it long enough.
 
TWL

TWL

Kernel panic: Aiee.......
If you happen to run linux you can use:
Code: 
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda
This will write zeros to the entire drive.
 
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