using HDDerase

[astron]

After secure erasing 2nd(slave) hard drive with HDDerase.exe utility, 2nd
hard drive(slave) is not listed anymore in My Computer, but it shown in
Hardware > Device Manager. What is the problem?

 

[Tim Meddick]

Even though the drive appears in Device Manager - does it show up as being
"Connected" ?

Try rebooting, and opening the Disk Management console to see what drives
are actually connected and what partitions / content are on them.

To do that, type the following into the "Run" box on the Start Menu :

diskmgmt.msc

....and press the [ok] button.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[Ken Springer]

Even though the drive appears in Device Manager - does it show up as being
"Connected" ?

Try rebooting, and opening the Disk Management console to see what drives
are actually connected and what partitions / content are on them.

To do that, type the following into the "Run" box on the Start Menu :

diskmgmt.msc

...and press the [ok] button.

Tim's instructions are correct, Astron, but I find this easier:

Right click on My Computer, select Manage, and you get the Computer
Management window. From there, you can access disk management, device
manager, event logs, a lot of useful info from just one place.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 7.0.1
Thunderbird 7.0.1
LibreOffice 3.3.4

 

[Tim Meddick]

Clever-clogs!!

(But yes, I have to agree, it is easier to do as you say...)

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

< clipped >

Try rebooting, and opening the Disk Management console to see what
drives
are actually connected and what partitions / content are on them.

To do that, type the following into the "Run" box on the Start Menu :

diskmgmt.msc

...and press the [ok] button.

Tim's instructions are correct, Astron, but I find this easier:

Right click on My Computer, select Manage, and you get the Computer
Management window. From there, you can access disk management, device
manager, event logs, a lot of useful info from just one place.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 7.0.1
Thunderbird 7.0.1
LibreOffice 3.3.4

 

[astron]

Clever-clogs!!

(But yes, I have to agree, it is easier to do as you say...)

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

< clipped >

Try rebooting, and opening the Disk Management console to see what
drives
are actually connected and what partitions / content are on them.

To do that, type the following into the "Run" box on the Start Menu :

diskmgmt.msc

...and press the [ok] button.

Tim's instructions are correct, Astron, but I find this easier:

Right click on My Computer, select Manage, and you get the Computer
Management window. From there, you can access disk management, device
manager, event logs, a lot of useful info from just one place.

---------------

in Device Manager, right click on 2nd drive, Properties >show "This device
is working properly."
In addition, something wrong now with windows xp, after rebooting it stop on
at the first operations,
show "Primary Slave Hard Disk Error" , press F1 to Resume. But when press F1
it does not load it stay with no responce.
When Press F2, I come intoBios, then ESC to esacpe, then Windows proceed
loading, but very slow, windows logo stay 5-6 minutes.
Seems this utility HDDerase is crap.. if after using it this cause serious
problems!

 

[Paul]

Clever-clogs!!

(But yes, I have to agree, it is easier to do as you say...)

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

On 10/27/11 9:06 AM, Tim Meddick wrote:
< clipped >

Try rebooting, and opening the Disk Management console to see what
drives
are actually connected and what partitions / content are on them.

To do that, type the following into the "Run" box on the Start Menu :

diskmgmt.msc

...and press the [ok] button.

Tim's instructions are correct, Astron, but I find this easier:

Right click on My Computer, select Manage, and you get the Computer
Management window. From there, you can access disk management,
device manager, event logs, a lot of useful info from just one place.

---------------

in Device Manager, right click on 2nd drive, Properties >show "This
device is working properly."
In addition, something wrong now with windows xp, after rebooting it
stop on at the first operations,
show "Primary Slave Hard Disk Error" , press F1 to Resume. But when
press F1 it does not load it stay with no responce.
When Press F2, I come intoBios, then ESC to esacpe, then Windows proceed
loading, but very slow, windows logo stay 5-6 minutes.
Seems this utility HDDerase is crap.. if after using it this cause
serious problems!

It's not crap.

You have to understand what "Secure Erase" does.

When a Secure Erase command is issued to the drive, you have
to wait for it to complete. Leave the program running and let
the computer sit for 1 to 2 hours. That will allow sufficient
time for the erasure program running *inside* the drive to finish.

You could even leave the PC sitting in the BIOS while this
is going on. Once Secure Erase is issues, all the drive needs
is power to be supplied, until the routine is finished.

The hard drive executing a Secure Erase command, is not supposed
to respond to new commands, until the Secure Erase operation is
completed. If you turn off the power to the drive, the drive will
remember what it was doing, when the power is next applied. And the
Secure Erase will continue.

For example, you can issue a Secure Erase, immediately turn off the
power, put the drive in an envelope and send the drive to a friend.
When your friend installs the drive, your friend must wait the one
to two hours, with the power applied, before the disk will respond
to new commands.

That is my guess, as to what you're seeing with "Primary Slave Hard Disk Error".
The drive is currently busy internally, and you must wait, with power
applied to the drive, to give it time to finish. The time it needs,
is a function of drive size. If you had a 3 TB hard drive, this will
still take a while. The erase operation cannot go any faster than
the head to media limit.

Paul

 

[Ken Springer]

Clever-clogs!!

(But yes, I have to agree, it is easier to do as you say...)

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

On 10/27/11 9:06 AM, Tim Meddick wrote:
< clipped>

Try rebooting, and opening the Disk Management console to see what
drives
are actually connected and what partitions / content are on them.

To do that, type the following into the "Run" box on the Start Menu :

diskmgmt.msc

...and press the [ok] button.

Tim's instructions are correct, Astron, but I find this easier:

Right click on My Computer, select Manage, and you get the Computer
Management window. From there, you can access disk management, device
manager, event logs, a lot of useful info from just one place.

---------------

in Device Manager, right click on 2nd drive, Properties>show "This device
is working properly."
In addition, something wrong now with windows xp, after rebooting it stop on
at the first operations,
show "Primary Slave Hard Disk Error" , press F1 to Resume. But when press F1
it does not load it stay with no responce.
When Press F2, I come intoBios, then ESC to esacpe, then Windows proceed
loading, but very slow, windows logo stay 5-6 minutes.
Seems this utility HDDerase is crap.. if after using it this cause serious
problems!

A caveat first, here, I'm not a tech, just play with these things! LOL

I'd never heard of HDDErase, so went Googling. It appears the program
wipes absolutely everything from the hard drive. It would surely kill
any malware! LOL

I *assume* you have all updates installed for XP. There are those users
who pick and choose which updates, or don't bother with it, but I'm at
the other end of the pendulum swing. The only update I do not install
is the one that supports card reading keyboards.

My approach would be:

1. Disconnect the ribbon cable from the drive. Computer off, of
course.
2. If the computer then boots, go into Device Manager and removed the
drive from the system.
3. Shutdown, then reconnect the drive.
4. When XP starts, I *think* XP should recognize the 2nd drive as "New
Hardware Found".
5. Go from there, you may have to actually format it.

I've never run across this happening, so YMMV.

You may have to consider the possibility the drive is going south. I
had that happen to me, tried to fix the computer while the drive was dieing.

I just read Paul's reply, he very well may be right. I'd follow his
suggestions before doing the above.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 7.0.1
Thunderbird 7.0.1
LibreOffice 3.3.4

 

[astron]

Clever-clogs!!

(But yes, I have to agree, it is easier to do as you say...)

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.




On 10/27/11 9:06 AM, Tim Meddick wrote:
< clipped>

Try rebooting, and opening the Disk Management console to see what
drives
are actually connected and what partitions / content are on them.

To do that, type the following into the "Run" box on the Start Menu :

diskmgmt.msc

...and press the [ok] button.

Tim's instructions are correct, Astron, but I find this easier:

Right click on My Computer, select Manage, and you get the Computer
Management window. From there, you can access disk management, device
manager, event logs, a lot of useful info from just one place.

---------------

in Device Manager, right click on 2nd drive, Properties>show "This device
is working properly."
In addition, something wrong now with windows xp, after rebooting it stop
on
at the first operations,
show "Primary Slave Hard Disk Error" , press F1 to Resume. But when press
F1
it does not load it stay with no responce.
When Press F2, I come intoBios, then ESC to esacpe, then Windows
proceed
loading, but very slow, windows logo stay 5-6 minutes.
Seems this utility HDDerase is crap.. if after using it this cause
serious
problems!

A caveat first, here, I'm not a tech, just play with these things! LOL

I'd never heard of HDDErase, so went Googling. It appears the program
wipes absolutely everything from the hard drive. It would surely kill any
malware! LOL

I *assume* you have all updates installed for XP. There are those users
who pick and choose which updates, or don't bother with it, but I'm at the
other end of the pendulum swing. The only update I do not install is the
one that supports card reading keyboards.

My approach would be:

1. Disconnect the ribbon cable from the drive. Computer off, of course.

2. If the computer then boots, go into Device Manager and removed the
drive from the system.
3. Shutdown, then reconnect the drive.
4. When XP starts, I *think* XP should recognize the 2nd drive as "New
Hardware Found".
5. Go from there, you may have to actually format it.

I've never run across this happening, so YMMV.

You may have to consider the possibility the drive is going south. I had
that happen to me, tried to fix the computer while the drive was dieing.

I just read Paul's reply, he very well may be right. I'd follow his
suggestions before doing the above.

----------

HDDerase utility I finished it job, wiped this160Gb drive , work about
50min, then showed message it finished, then prompted to see "Log", I
agreed, but it was not accessible, then I tried exit from utility by type
"E" - but utility does not respond, so I press reboot button to reboot PC.
Then this problem appear. There is no possibility physically disconnect the
ribbon cable from the drive: is there other way solve this issue?

 

[Al Sparber]

You now need to format it because by securely erasing the HD, the disk's
boot sector that stores the info has also been erased.

By formatting the disk you will get everything back to normal. If this
fails then you can always visit my website to see if there are any
products that are of interests!!

 

[Paul]

Clever-clogs!!

(But yes, I have to agree, it is easier to do as you say...)

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.




On 10/27/11 9:06 AM, Tim Meddick wrote:
< clipped>

Try rebooting, and opening the Disk Management console to see what
drives
are actually connected and what partitions / content are on them.

To do that, type the following into the "Run" box on the Start Menu :

diskmgmt.msc

...and press the [ok] button.

Tim's instructions are correct, Astron, but I find this easier:

Right click on My Computer, select Manage, and you get the Computer
Management window. From there, you can access disk management, device
manager, event logs, a lot of useful info from just one place.



--
Ken
---------------

in Device Manager, right click on 2nd drive, Properties>show "This
device
is working properly."
In addition, something wrong now with windows xp, after rebooting it
stop on
at the first operations,
show "Primary Slave Hard Disk Error" , press F1 to Resume. But when
press F1
it does not load it stay with no responce.
When Press F2, I come intoBios, then ESC to esacpe, then Windows
proceed
loading, but very slow, windows logo stay 5-6 minutes.
Seems this utility HDDerase is crap.. if after using it this cause
serious
problems!

A caveat first, here, I'm not a tech, just play with these things! LOL

I'd never heard of HDDErase, so went Googling. It appears the program
wipes absolutely everything from the hard drive. It would surely kill
any malware! LOL

I *assume* you have all updates installed for XP. There are those
users who pick and choose which updates, or don't bother with it, but
I'm at the other end of the pendulum swing. The only update I do not
install is the one that supports card reading keyboards.

My approach would be:

1. Disconnect the ribbon cable from the drive. Computer off, of
course.
2. If the computer then boots, go into Device Manager and removed the
drive from the system.
3. Shutdown, then reconnect the drive.
4. When XP starts, I *think* XP should recognize the 2nd drive as
"New Hardware Found".
5. Go from there, you may have to actually format it.

I've never run across this happening, so YMMV.

You may have to consider the possibility the drive is going south. I
had that happen to me, tried to fix the computer while the drive was
dieing.

I just read Paul's reply, he very well may be right. I'd follow his
suggestions before doing the above.

----------

HDDerase utility I finished it job, wiped this160Gb drive , work about
50min, then showed message it finished, then prompted to see "Log", I
agreed, but it was not accessible, then I tried exit from utility by
type "E" - but utility does not respond, so I press reboot button to
reboot PC. Then this problem appear. There is no possibility physically
disconnect the ribbon cable from the drive: is there other way solve
this issue?

The drive could be dead.

Has the computer been powered off completely, since this was done ?
Try turning off the power, wait 30 seconds, then turn the power back on.
Is the drive detected now ? Does the drive work now ?

According to the README file

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/HDDEraseReadMe.txt

"3.0 - Released 12/12/2006

- Added audit trail after secure erase unit completes. When a secure erase or
enhanced secure erase completes successfully, an erase completion message and
time stamp are written to LBA sector 0 of erased drive. It will also print the
same message to a log file "se_log.log" if possible. The log file is amended
and updated each time the program completes a successful security erase or
enhanced secure erase, creating a log of all completed erasures."

So when the utility did not respond, it may have been waiting
for the "LBA sector 0" update to finish. And it could be,
that the drive really wasn't "ready" at that point in time.

Paul

 

[David H. Lipman]

After secure erasing 2nd(slave) hard drive with HDDerase.exe utility, 2nd hard
drive(slave) is not listed anymore in My Computer, but it shown in

Hardware >> Device Manager. What is the problem?

LOL ;-)

Its a raw drive with no partition scheme that Windows can assign a drive letter to and
thus wiull NOT be shown in Explorer.

 

[astron]

On 10/27/11 9:51 AM, astron wrote:

Clever-clogs!!

(But yes, I have to agree, it is easier to do as you say...)

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.




On 10/27/11 9:06 AM, Tim Meddick wrote:
< clipped>

Try rebooting, and opening the Disk Management console to see what
drives
are actually connected and what partitions / content are on them.

To do that, type the following into the "Run" box on the Start Menu :

diskmgmt.msc

...and press the [ok] button.

Tim's instructions are correct, Astron, but I find this easier:

Right click on My Computer, select Manage, and you get the Computer
Management window. From there, you can access disk management, device
manager, event logs, a lot of useful info from just one place.



--
Ken
---------------

in Device Manager, right click on 2nd drive, Properties>show "This
device
is working properly."
In addition, something wrong now with windows xp, after rebooting it
stop on
at the first operations,
show "Primary Slave Hard Disk Error" , press F1 to Resume. But when
press F1
it does not load it stay with no responce.
When Press F2, I come intoBios, then ESC to esacpe, then Windows
proceed
loading, but very slow, windows logo stay 5-6 minutes.
Seems this utility HDDerase is crap.. if after using it this cause
serious
problems!

A caveat first, here, I'm not a tech, just play with these things! LOL

I'd never heard of HDDErase, so went Googling. It appears the program
wipes absolutely everything from the hard drive. It would surely kill
any malware! LOL

I *assume* you have all updates installed for XP. There are those
users who pick and choose which updates, or don't bother with it, but
I'm at the other end of the pendulum swing. The only update I do not
install is the one that supports card reading keyboards.

My approach would be:

1. Disconnect the ribbon cable from the drive. Computer off, of
course.
2. If the computer then boots, go into Device Manager and removed the
drive from the system.
3. Shutdown, then reconnect the drive.
4. When XP starts, I *think* XP should recognize the 2nd drive as
"New Hardware Found".
5. Go from there, you may have to actually format it.

I've never run across this happening, so YMMV.

You may have to consider the possibility the drive is going south. I
had that happen to me, tried to fix the computer while the drive was
dieing.

I just read Paul's reply, he very well may be right. I'd follow his
suggestions before doing the above.

----------

HDDerase utility I finished it job, wiped this160Gb drive , work about
50min, then showed message it finished, then prompted to see "Log", I
agreed, but it was not accessible, then I tried exit from utility by
type "E" - but utility does not respond, so I press reboot button to
reboot PC. Then this problem appear. There is no possibility physically
disconnect the ribbon cable from the drive: is there other way solve
this issue?

The drive could be dead.

Has the computer been powered off completely, since this was done ?
Try turning off the power, wait 30 seconds, then turn the power back on.
Is the drive detected now ? Does the drive work now ?

According to the README file

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/HDDEraseReadMe.txt

"3.0 - Released 12/12/2006

- Added audit trail after secure erase unit completes. When a secure erase or
enhanced secure erase completes successfully, an erase completion message and
time stamp are written to LBA sector 0 of erased drive. It will also print the
same message to a log file "se_log.log" if possible. The log file is amended
and updated each time the program completes a successful security erase or
enhanced secure erase, creating a log of all completed erasures."

So when the utility did not respond, it may have been waiting
for the "LBA sector 0" update to finish. And it could be,
that the drive really wasn't "ready" at that point in time.

Paul

--------
So if drive wasn't "ready" at that point in time, it can be damaged?

So this hdderase.exe, as side effect, can kill drive? I was used HDD less
then 1 year, it has almost 60% free space.
If it show finished, it must provide way automatically exit or reboot.
Instead of showing senseless prompts.

Has the computer been powered off completely, since this was done ?

I rebooted it via restart. Will check tomorrow at work. As I specified
earlier, most serious issue is that windows at boot show error
"Primary Slave Hard Disk Error" , press F1 to Resume. And pressing F1 does
not help, stay with no responce.
Plus, Windows loads extremelly slow now, stay at windows logo 5-6 minutes.

I need secure erase also Primary master hard drive(with OS), but I not sure
now, is there better utility? I need then reinstall windows, as soon as
possible.

 

[astron]

Hardware >> Device Manager. What is the problem?

LOL ;-)

Its a raw drive with no partition scheme that Windows can assign a drive letter to and
thus wiull NOT be shown in Explorer.

 

[David H. Lipman]

This makes things clearer. But how to resolve issue I mentioned above, BIOS
show error "Primary Slave Hard Disk Error", press F1 to Resume. ?

I don't know. It would depend on the computer, hard disk and BIOS revision.

The BIOS looks at the hardware and communicates to the BIOS (firmware) embedded on the
hard disk. It then sends the system BIOS the drive parameters (heads, cylinders & sectors
per track).

When the user views the CMOS Setup they are running a routine in the BIOS that queries
information set about the hardware in CMOS memory.

The fact that you used the text "2nd(slave) hard drive" is indicative of an older PC that
has an IDE/EIDE (aka; PATA) interface. Thus will most likely have two IDE Channels cable
of up to four IDE devices.

When the user views the CMOS Setup they should then be able to see the assigned drive
parameters (heads, cylinders & sectors per track) or the hard disk model.

If Yes then there is good communication with the hard disk hardware and the information
will be passed onto the installed Operating System. Presumably you have Windows XP (as
you posted in this group) and in the WinXP "Device Manager" you can see the hardware.

Pretty much, that's all that counts. The drive can now be re-formatted using the OS.

It is possible that the un-named system using the un-named BIOS and BIOS version could be
looking for a marker on said hard disk that was removed and thus the error message.
If the drive can be formatted under WinXP, its a moot point.
If the drive can NOT be formatted under WinXP then you would have to use the un-named hard
disk manufacturer's disk utility to see if the drive can be revived (so to speak). The
un-named hard disk manufacturer's disk utility would know how to fully communicate with
its hardware and would give further indication one way or another.

 

[Paul]

So if drive wasn't "ready" at that point in time, it can be damaged?

This is speculation on my part.

Further testing may tell you what is going on.

So this hdderase.exe, as side effect, can kill drive? I was used HDD less
then 1 year, it has almost 60% free space.
If it show finished, it must provide way automatically exit or reboot.
Instead of showing senseless prompts.

I rebooted it via restart. Will check tomorrow at work. As I specified
earlier, most serious issue is that windows at boot show error
"Primary Slave Hard Disk Error" , press F1 to Resume. And pressing F1 does
not help, stay with no responce.
Plus, Windows loads extremelly slow now, stay at windows logo 5-6 minutes.

I need secure erase also Primary master hard drive(with OS), but I not sure
now, is there better utility? I need then reinstall windows, as soon as
possible.

Please remember, that the HDDerase utility doesn't "erase" anything.

It issues a Secure Erase instruction to the hard drive. Secure Erase
was added as a feature, to the ATA standard, some years ago. Secure
Erase is not available on SCSI, only on ATA drives (SATA or IDE).

It is up to the hard drive manufacturer, to properly implement a
response to that instruction. The hard drive internal microcontroller must:

1) Record that Secure Erase has been issued.
2) Keep track of progress. If the power goes off before completion,
the Secure Erase instruction continues to execute when power is restored.
3) Attempt to erase spare sector area as well as regular sector area.
4) When finished, return successfully to normal operation.

In the process of doing that, the hard drive should preserve the
sector sparing information. If you had three bad sectors, and spares
were being used, the drive will still have three bad sectors after
being Secure Erased. Erasure does not return the drive to factory state,
rather factory state plus whatever bad sectors were detected during
life. So the Secure Erase won't "repair bad sectors". The bad ones
will still be bad afterwards.

*******

The question at this point is, what is the hard drive trying to tell us ?

Why not use a hard drive diagnostic, and see what it says ?

You may have to move the drive, to a computer where the hard drive diagnostic
works. I have a computer here, where the free hard drive diagnostic will
not run properly, and to test, I have to move drives to my older computer.
Then, the diagnostic will run properly.

I use Seatools for MSDOS, when I test my Seagate drives. That is an
example of a free diagnostic. Western Digital has their own diagnostics.

You may want to Google the make and model number of your hard drive,
and see if there are known issues with the Secure Erase instruction.

A number of hard drives, have had firmware related issues. There have
been Seagates, where the drive "disappears" due to firmware, and
there are complicated recipes for recovery (use the serial interface
on the drive and a USB to TTL level serial adapter). Hard drives
aren't as "appliance like" as the manufacturer wants us to believe.
Some have problems.

Based on the error code returned when you use the diagnostic,
you may get more material for your Google search.

Paul

 

[astron]

I don't know. It would depend on the computer, hard disk and BIOS
revision.

The BIOS looks at the hardware and communicates to the BIOS (firmware)
embedded on the hard disk. It then sends the system BIOS the drive
parameters (heads, cylinders & sectors per track).

When the user views the CMOS Setup they are running a routine in the BIOS
that queries information set about the hardware in CMOS memory.

The fact that you used the text "2nd(slave) hard drive" is indicative of
an older PC that has an IDE/EIDE (aka; PATA) interface. Thus will most
likely have two IDE Channels cable of up to four IDE devices.

When the user views the CMOS Setup they should then be able to see the
assigned drive parameters (heads, cylinders & sectors per track) or the
hard disk model.

If Yes then there is good communication with the hard disk hardware and
the information will be passed onto the installed Operating System.
Presumably you have Windows XP (as you posted in this group) and in the
WinXP "Device Manager" you can see the hardware.

Pretty much, that's all that counts. The drive can now be re-formatted
using the OS.

It is possible that the un-named system using the un-named BIOS and BIOS
version could be looking for a marker on said hard disk that was removed
and thus the error message.
If the drive can be formatted under WinXP, its a moot point.
If the drive can NOT be formatted under WinXP then you would have to use
the un-named hard disk manufacturer's disk utility to see if the drive can
be revived (so to speak). The un-named hard disk manufacturer's disk
utility would know how to fully communicate with its hardware and would
give further indication one way or another.

 

[David H. Lipman]

The disk shown in Device Manager as "Disk Drive", when right click on it, there are NO
option for partitioning or formatting disk. There is option Disable, Uninstall, but this
not change anything.

And that's 100% correct as it should be!

Device Manager doesn't work with hard disks, scanners, mice, etc.

Device Manager enumerates hardware and their associated drivers to integrate the hardware
into the overarching system.

Thus Device Manager does not and "should not" format a disk !

Right-Click on "My Computer"
choose; manage --> storage --> disk management

It is under "disk management" that you can partition and format a disk as well as assign
or re-assigned drive letters to a given disk.

 

[Paul]

<resend - server problems>

I tried the HDDERASE program here.

I used a Seagate 7200.7 80GB drive.

I used the HDDERASE.iso and made a boot DVD with it, and used that
to run the command.

The program waits while the erase command is running. It took 42 minutes
to complete, during which time the hard drive light was on. By calculation,
it should have taken 30 minutes to do the erasure, so it was a bit slow.
(30 minutes at average benchmark rate should have been enough to complete
the entire 80GB disk).

The program also wrote the MBR with the details of the erasure. I was
able to verify that by reading the MBR later and examining the data with
a hex editor. And the confirmation of erasure was printed in there. The
adjacent sectors contained all 0's, so that was the pattern used internally
by Secure Erase (drive didn't support Enhanced option).

When Windows next started, and that disk was connected:

1) BIOS made no complaints. There were no "Primary Slave Hard Disk Error"
type errors. Presumably that error is a SMART error ?

2) Windows had an entry in Device Manager, under Disk Drives ("ST380011")

3) Disk Management shows an uninitialized 80GB drive. The wizard popped up
and wanted to write a signature on the drive. I canceled that. I used
the initialize button on the left in Disk Management, to turn the disk
into a Basic disk.

4) I was able to make a partition on the drive after that. Now, it has
a single 80GB partition, as proof it's working.

So I had no problems with mine.

I had significant problems with the usage of MSDOS for this task.
It's a pain in the ass, because it insists on only the primary four
disk interfaces be used. On my current machine, the IDE interface is
done with a separate chip, and MSDOS couldn't see it. So the
HDDErase program had no menu items to select from, and could not
erase the disk.

On my "legacy" machine, I put the IDE hard drive on a ribbon cable
and it was seen fine. The problew on that machine was a bit different.
I was booting MSDOS from a SATA DVD. That uses Extended INT 0x13 as
far as I know. But when the setup tried to load a CDROM driver, of
course the CDROM driver can't see the SATA interface, and so I
couldn't actually access the copy of HDDErase which was on the R:
CDROM image. Yet, the rest of the boot files, used to boot the
system (on Q were visible. THe MSDOS ISO on the HDDErase download,
is one of those "oversized" setups, with floppy sized boot volume, but
also a separate CDROM section, and that's the part that wouldn't mount.
To fix that, I had to plug an IDE2SAT adapter into the back of the
DVD drive, and connect it to the ribbon cable, and then, with all
devices on ribbon cables, I was able to use HDDErase.

So no significant problems here, and no broken hard drive. The
HDDErase program seemed to work. And the disk did show up in Disk
Management just fine.

Paul

 

[astron]

<resend - server problems>

I tried the HDDERASE program here.

I used a Seagate 7200.7 80GB drive.

I used the HDDERASE.iso and made a boot DVD with it, and used that
to run the command.

The program waits while the erase command is running. It took 42 minutes
to complete, during which time the hard drive light was on. By calculation,
it should have taken 30 minutes to do the erasure, so it was a bit slow.
(30 minutes at average benchmark rate should have been enough to complete
the entire 80GB disk).

The program also wrote the MBR with the details of the erasure. I was
able to verify that by reading the MBR later and examining the data with
a hex editor. And the confirmation of erasure was printed in there. The
adjacent sectors contained all 0's, so that was the pattern used internally
by Secure Erase (drive didn't support Enhanced option).

When Windows next started, and that disk was connected:

1) BIOS made no complaints. There were no "Primary Slave Hard Disk Error"
type errors. Presumably that error is a SMART error ?

2) Windows had an entry in Device Manager, under Disk Drives ("ST380011")

3) Disk Management shows an uninitialized 80GB drive. The wizard popped up
and wanted to write a signature on the drive. I canceled that. I used
the initialize button on the left in Disk Management, to turn the disk
into a Basic disk.

4) I was able to make a partition on the drive after that. Now, it has
a single 80GB partition, as proof it's working.

So I had no problems with mine.

I had significant problems with the usage of MSDOS for this task.
It's a pain in the ass, because it insists on only the primary four
disk interfaces be used. On my current machine, the IDE interface is
done with a separate chip, and MSDOS couldn't see it. So the
HDDErase program had no menu items to select from, and could not
erase the disk.

On my "legacy" machine, I put the IDE hard drive on a ribbon cable
and it was seen fine. The problew on that machine was a bit different.
I was booting MSDOS from a SATA DVD. That uses Extended INT 0x13 as
far as I know. But when the setup tried to load a CDROM driver, of
course the CDROM driver can't see the SATA interface, and so I
couldn't actually access the copy of HDDErase which was on the R:
CDROM image. Yet, the rest of the boot files, used to boot the
system (on Q were visible. THe MSDOS ISO on the HDDErase download,
is one of those "oversized" setups, with floppy sized boot volume, but
also a separate CDROM section, and that's the part that wouldn't mount.
To fix that, I had to plug an IDE2SAT adapter into the back of the
DVD drive, and connect it to the ribbon cable, and then, with all
devices on ribbon cables, I was able to use HDDErase.

So no significant problems here, and no broken hard drive. The
HDDErase program seemed to work. And the disk did show up in Disk
Management just fine.

Paul

------

After turning Off computer, no error shown anymore at switch on PC, so its
OK. But still remains problem with slave hard drive(2nd), it shown in Device
Manager, but there is no option for partition and format it from there.

Thanks.

 

[Patok]

After turning Off computer, no error shown anymore at switch on PC, so its
OK. But still remains problem with slave hard drive(2nd), it shown in Device
Manager, but there is no option for partition and format it from there.

Do you ever read what people wrote in response to your query? It is
*NOT* in Device Manager. The option to partition and format is in My
Computer (right-click) -> Manage -> Storage -> Disk Management.
Or in (if you have that) Administrative Tools -> Computer Management
-> Storage -> Disk Management.