Best Way to Wipe Hard Drive?

P

PawsForThought

I am going to be switching motherboards, creating a RAID 0 and reinstalling
Windows XP Pro. Before I switch out the motherboards, I need to wipe
everything off my current hard drive. I am assuming that I would restart the
computer with a Startup disk to do so. What is the best way to totally delete
everything on the drive? Thanks.
 
F

Frank

PawsForThought said:
I am going to be switching motherboards, creating a RAID 0 and reinstalling
Windows XP Pro. Before I switch out the motherboards, I need to wipe
everything off my current hard drive. I am assuming that I would restart
the
computer with a Startup disk to do so. What is the best way to totally
delete
everything on the drive? Thanks.

Go to the manufacturers support to download their diagnostic tool.
 
P

PawsForThought

From: "Frank" (e-mail address removed)
Go to the manufacturers support to download their diagnostic tool.

Thanks so much, Frank. I have a Western Digital and I'm downloading their tool
now.
 
P

PawsForThought

: "DaveW" (e-mail address removed)
Format the harddrive. That will clear the harddrive of files.

Thanks, Dave. Because I'm building a RAID, I wanted to start with 2 drives
that were completely clean, so that's why I used the utility that overwrites
the drive with 0's. So I'm not sure if just a simple formatting would have
worked.
 
B

BBUNNY

PawsForThought said:
Thanks, Dave. Because I'm building a RAID, I wanted to start with 2
drives
that were completely clean, so that's why I used the utility that
overwrites
the drive with 0's. So I'm not sure if just a simple formatting would
have
worked.

You are on the right track. If you want a clean disk, return it to a raw
state.
 
B

Bill Turner

darnit7 said:
Thanks, Dave. Because I'm building a RAID, I wanted to start with 2 drives
that were completely clean, so that's why I used the utility that overwrites
the drive with 0's. So I'm not sure if just a simple formatting would have
worked.
___________________________________________________________

Do you have a *serious* security issue? If so, just formatting or even
writing the disk with zeros is not sufficient. Top security experts say
the disk must be rewritten many times with different procedures to be
really safe. Believe it or not, a disk written over once or twice can
have its data recovered by using some very sophisticated techniques.

But if you are just an average user like most of us, a simple format is
enough.
 
P

PawsForThought

Bill Turner (e-mail address removed)
Do you have a *serious* security issue? If so, just formatting or even
writing the disk with zeros is not sufficient. Top security experts say
the disk must be rewritten many times with different procedures to be
really safe. Believe it or not, a disk written over once or twice can
have its data recovered by using some very sophisticated techniques.

Oh no, no security issues at all. This is my home computer.
But if you are just an average user like most of us, a simple format is
enough.

The reason I used the utility that writes 0's is because according to my
motherboard manual, when building the kind of RAID I want to, they advise using
2 new drives. Since one of the drives had my operating system on it, I wanted
to make sure it was clean, and I wasn't sure if just a simple format is what
they meant when they said "new." Interesting about the security and how they
can recover data!
 
D

David Maynard

PawsForThought said:
Oh no, no security issues at all. This is my home computer.




The reason I used the utility that writes 0's is because according to my
motherboard manual, when building the kind of RAID I want to, they advise using
2 new drives. Since one of the drives had my operating system on it, I wanted
to make sure it was clean, and I wasn't sure if just a simple format is what
they meant when they said "new." Interesting about the security and how they
can recover data!

I see. Well, no, they're not talking about 1s and 0s. They're using 'new'
as a proxy term for 'reliable'.

BOTH drives must work for a RAID 0 array to function and if one fails then
all data is lost. What they're saying is it's a bad idea to use an old
drive because if it fails everything is lost. Ergo, best to use two new drives.
 
D

David Maynard

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B

Bill Turner

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P

PawsForThought

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P

Phisherman

I am going to be switching motherboards, creating a RAID 0 and reinstalling
Windows XP Pro. Before I switch out the motherboards, I need to wipe
everything off my current hard drive. I am assuming that I would restart the
computer with a Startup disk to do so. What is the best way to totally delete
everything on the drive? Thanks.


There are various utilities that will do this. Norton Utilities will
wipe a disk with 1's and 0's several times using government standards.
It will wipe the unused areas as well. But, it is still possible to
retrieve data using (expensive) equipment. To completely destroy
data, the hard drive must be destroyed with a heavy sledge and a
"hammering action." If you don't care about retrieval of sensitive
data, just boot from a floppy or CD and use the disk partitioning
utility then format.
 
P

PawsForThought

From: David Maynard (e-mail address removed)
BOTH drives must work for a RAID 0 array to function and if one fails then
all data is lost. What they're saying is it's a bad idea to use an old
drive because if it fails everything is lost. Ergo, best to use two new
drives.

Ahhh, got it. Oh well, it's clean now and I've got the RAID set up in the
BIOS. Going to install the OS now and keeping my fingers crossed that it
works. Thanks :)
 

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