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erase hard drive
Name: george Date: November 19, 2003 at 18:18:05 Pacific OS: win 98se CPU/Ram: P4 1.3 / 256 RAM
Comment:
How do I erase my hard drive to get it ready to reinstall win 98SE?
Name: kkk Date: November 19, 2003 at 18:35:42 Pacific
Reply:
boot with a win98 boot floppy, a:\format c:/s
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Response Number 2
Name: DAVEINCAPS Date: November 19, 2003 at 21:05:55 Pacific
Reply:
What operating system was previously on the drive?
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Response Number 3
Name: anenefan Date: November 20, 2003 at 06:47:57 Pacific
Reply:
Hi
Just add that the better ways of preparing a drive is to use a utility that writes zeros to each bit of the drive (this is called zeroing or Low Level Format
*NB LLFs, some years ago, actually mapped the defects of drives. They needed to be used with care as there was potential to harm drives they were not intended for.
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Response Number 4
Name: AyeKantSpeylGud Date: November 22, 2003 at 16:41:41 Pacific
Reply:
Might I add though - that if you decide to do the low-level format, you will then have to use FDISK to recreate the partition and such. Doing a regular format seems to generally be what you're asking about in order to just erase the drive to prepare it for a new installation of Windows.
However, if there's anything secretive . . . having it all be written over again with 0's should help make sure that any secretive data is gone.
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Response Number 5
Name: anenefan Date: November 22, 2003 at 18:11:06 Pacific
Reply:
Hi again
Thanks AyeKantSpeylGud, I had actually got sidetracked there. I missed georges' reference to "re-install". A regular format does not stop a determined person retrieving data. The command issued should be format /U
To properly erase data - the data area is writen to and deleted a number of times or just written over with a different pattern X times. Its a lot more complicated than that - so search (google altavista) for a data eradicator that meets US gov. standards.
Zeroing is not carried out just to erase data. [Its more to prepare the drive] It resets the whole drive to be zeros - removing any bad partition information that has been left behind from past partitions. [preparing separate partitions on a drive for different OS's. : With the right tools even a partition can be zeroed on its own]
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