should i reformat hard drive?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Janice
  • Start date Start date
J

Janice

I will be giving my sister my old xp computer. Should I reformat the hard
drive before I give it to her or is there a better way to erase my footprints?
 
if you give her your laptop
the windows license must also
be give to her.

so if you have the xp disks
you should pass them on to
her with the laptop.

in regards to formatting, this
is not ideal especially if you
integrated third party software
which you want her to have
as well.

instead erase your footprints
or move your footprints onto
a dvd or cd for future reference.


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

on the other hand, if there are
no disks included with the laptop
then it is likely there is a factory
restore feature.

the feature will wipe the hard
drive clean and install all the
original software that came with
the machine from the factory.

the setup files for the factory
restore may be located in a
hidden partition on the hard
drive.

however, you should double
check with the home site for
the laptop,

lookup that model number and
search for the instructions to execute
a factory restore.

keep in mind that a factory restore
is not the same as a system restore
or backup restore.

a factory restore will restore the
laptop back to its original state.
--
db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
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~ "share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Janice

Just do a clean reformat which should always be done when selling or giving away
your computer. If your sister has another OS on an disk then just wipe the HD clean
 
Janice said:
I will be giving my sister my old xp computer. Should I reformat the hard
drive before I give it to her or is there a better way to erase my footprints?
Click to expand...

www.killdisk.com
Create a bootable floppy or CD. Boot using it. Erase the OS partition (and
any others you want that have your data).
Free.
 
VanguardLH said:
www.killdisk.com
Create a bootable floppy or CD. Boot using it. Erase the OS partition (and
any others you want that have your data).
Free.
Click to expand...

What you did not tell him was the computer would be unworkable for his sister unless she found
someone to install the operating system and drivers.
 
Richard said:
VanguardLH wrote ...


What you did not tell him was the computer would be unworkable for his
sister unless she found someone to install the operating system and
drivers.
Click to expand...

Where did you see in the original post that they were going to give an OS to
the sister?

What stops the OP from following the wipe with a *clean* OS install
(provided the OP is actually including the installation media with a
legitimate license with the hardware the OP is giving to the sister)?

What stops the sister from performing her own FRESH install of the OS as she
would have to regardless of where she bought or received the bare hardware?
 
Janice,

It doesn't matter because your sister is not going to spy on you. I would
just give her the system as it is but if you are really worried about your
own security then you can password protect your own username and create a
limited user for your sister to use.

Finally, simple format is sufficient unless you have been doing things what
a decent woman should not be doing like visiting those horrible sites
semi/fully naked men and women spraying water on each other!.

hth
 
Janice said:
I will be giving my sister my old xp computer. Should I reformat the hard
drive before I give it to her or is there a better way to erase my footprints?
Click to expand...

By not giving more details about the computer, we're forced to guess.
And that means more typing to cover the options.

If you have a Dell/HP/Acer/Gateway or the like, those computers come with
a recovery partition. The user manual for the computer, will mention a
certain function key you press just after power up. By using that function
key, you will have the option to erase the C: drive and reinstall the OS.
The OS is stored inside the recovery partition on the hard drive. Any data
files stored on the C: driver would be erased. On the next reboot, the computer
will be like it was when it came from the factory. It may even prompt for user
info, assigning a password and so on.

If you have a computer like that, then you *don't* want to erase the entire
hard drive. There are tools which can easily erase an entire hard drive, but
that might erase your recovery partition.

If you read the user manual, a second thing a new user of a Dell/HP/Acer/Gateway
is supposed to do, is prepare their own WinXP CD. You would normally get to
prepare one CD, which uses files copied from the recovery partition. They won't
allow you to burn multiple copies (but you can make copies with a CD burner
program). If the hard drive is ever damaged, and needs to be replaced, that
CD has your copy of the OS on it. Using that CD, you can return the computer
to factory state. Since you only get an opportunity to burn one copy of the CD,
you should give the CD to your sister, in case the hard drive fails while she
is using it.

*******

The second kind of computer, is one where you purchased a separate Microsoft
Windows CD (OEM or Retail). With that CD in your hands, you *could* afford to
erase the entire hard drive, user data files and OS files alike. A program
such as DBAN can do that. DBAN can erase all the hard drives in a computer
in one shot. But it does take a while to run, because it erases every sector
(or tries to). Don't leave any information inside the computer when you use this.
There are sad stories where users have erased their backup disk while
using this program.

http://www.dban.org/

Only use that, if you know you have a good, working CD in your hand with the OS
software on it. For example, it would be real embarrassing, if you DBANed the
hard drive, and then discovered that the CD drive could no longer read the
recovery disc you have in your hand.

I personally prefer the scenario of owning a real Microsoft CD, because it
gives me more freedom to deal with the computer. With the Dell/HP/Acer/Gateway
approach, I have to be more careful as a user, not to damage something
I may need in the future. There are occasionally posters to these newsgroups,
who manage to erase their Recovery Partition, without having made any copies
of the software they need. You can always go to Dell/HP/Acer/Gateway and
attempt to buy the recovery CD from them, but each company has its own policy
as to how many years those are for sale.

And if you ask me "why is Dell/HP/Acer/Gateway so brain dead?", I'll just
have to shrug my shoulders.

Good luck,
Paul
 
Janice said:
I will be giving my sister my old xp computer. Should I reformat the
hard drive before I give it to her or is there a better way to erase
my footprints?
Click to expand...

Formatting a hard drive does not remove anything, not even the directory.

You'll need a "wipe" program.
 
HeyBub said:
Formatting a hard drive does not remove anything, not even the directory.
Click to expand...

Eh? You need pretty sophisticated software to recover data from a formatted
drive...well beyond the pocket of the ordinary user...
 
Gordon said:
Eh? You need pretty sophisticated software to recover data from a
formatted drive...well beyond the pocket of the ordinary user...
Click to expand...

Anyone can easily recover files from a formatted drive using free
recovery utilities available all over the net. It really isn't very
difficult. Formatting a hard drive is like you removing the numbers on
your house and then stumping folks to find your house... and removing
the partition is like removing the street sign... still easy to find
your house.

John
 
HeyBub said:
Janice wrote:



Formatting a hard drive does not remove anything, not even the directory.

You'll need a "wipe" program.
Click to expand...
Hey boob,

Formatting deletes everything and this is sufficient for most people.
Are you Ken blake by any chance?. Ken Blake [Most Valuable Pig] or
whatever he is called now hasn't formatted a HD in his lifetime and so
he didn't know what formatting was about. I wonder if you are in the
same position! Never mind. You can always learn from us.
 
Per Gordon:
Eh? You need pretty sophisticated software to recover data from a formatted
drive...well beyond the pocket of the ordinary user...
Click to expand...

Gotta wonder if it's beyond the guys picking through the e-dumps
in, say Nigeria, and looking for bank account/credit card info?
 
ANONYMOUS said:
HeyBub said:
Janice wrote:



Formatting a hard drive does not remove anything, not even the
directory. You'll need a "wipe" program.
Click to expand...
Hey boob,

Formatting deletes everything and this is sufficient for most people.
Are you Ken blake by any chance?. Ken Blake [Most Valuable Pig] or
whatever he is called now hasn't formatted a HD in his lifetime and so
he didn't know what formatting was about. I wonder if you are in the
same position! Never mind. You can always learn from us.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the correction. Regrettably, the only thing I've learned is to
rely on my memory. Specifically, in this case:

--- begin quote
The command is used to perform the following actions on magnetic media:
1.. The boot record is placed in the location specified by the partition
table.
2.. The FAT entries are cleared by changing them to 0x00.
3.. The root directory is cleared out by changing any values found to
0x00.
4.. Format then checks each cluster to see if it is good or bad and marks
it in the FAT.
Unless you are using this command on a floppy disk and are using the /U
switch, the data area is untouched. Data previously written to the media is
still intact until it is overwritten when the cluster is reassigned to new
data.

--- end quote


I do appreciate, however, your heartfelt and emphatic response, wrong though
it may be.
 
ANONYMOUS said:
Hey boob,

Formatting deletes everything and this is sufficient for most people.
Click to expand...

Hey boob's boob,

Reread the original post. Notice that the OP asked if there was a *better*
way to erase her footprints. Better than what? Better than the reformat
operation that she already mentioned.

Formatting removes NO data. Replacing or overwriting the partition table
and file structures does NOT eradicate the data in the sectors. That just
eliminates the pointers to the data.

It's been about 2 decades since users had to perform low-level formatting.
The only utility that I can recall that still might let users perform a
low-level format is SpinRite because it has the ability to recover, read,
and rewrite misaligned sectors (but I haven't used it in a decade so I don't
know if it still offers the choice of a low-level format but which still
attempts to be non-destructive). For a l-o-n-g time now, users can only do
a high-level format and that doesn't touch the data.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_formatting
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/geom/formatLow-c.html
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/geom/formatHigh-c.html

It is trivial for 3rd party utilities to recover data from the
non-overwritten sectors on a [re]formatted hard disk. In fact, even a disk
editor can be used if you want to see the data before grabbing it all.
 
VanguardLH wrote:

It's been about 2 decades since users had to perform low-level formatting.
The only utility that I can recall that still might let users perform a
low-level format is SpinRite because it has the ability to recover, read,
and rewrite misaligned sectors (but I haven't used it in a decade so I don't
know if it still offers the choice of a low-level format but which still
attempts to be non-destructive). For a l-o-n-g time now, users can only do
a high-level format and that doesn't touch the data.
Click to expand...

You can use the port of "dd" to zero out a disk if you want. This will
erase all sectors, except spared out (errored) sectors.

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

dd if=/dev/zero of=\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0

With a slight change in syntax, you can also just zero out
an individual partition. This would leave the MBR intact.

dd if=/dev/zero of=\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition1

I haven't tried to erase the disk the OS sits on, just to
see whether permissions are a problem or not. Based on what
I can see at the moment, it does look like I might be
allowed to erase the hard drive holding C:, which would be
fun if I had the time to waste on the experiment (i.e. restore
later). I expect the OS would crash, sometime before the
command ran to completion.

DBAN will also erase the disk, but it might take a bit longer,
depending on what option is used.

Booting a Linux LiveCD (which doesn't have a dependence on the
hard drive at all), and using the copy of "dd" on there, could
also do the job. Just a slight difference in syntax. After
zeroing the raw disk, the MBR is gone, all sectors are wiped
etc.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda

No need for Spinrite just to do that.

HTH,
Paul
 
You have to kind of ignore ANONYMOUS he's just trying to be impressive
because
he lacks couth and inteligence..
HeyBub said:
ANONYMOUS said:
HeyBub said:
Janice wrote:


I will be giving my sister my old xp computer. Should I reformat
the hard drive before I give it to her or is there a better way to
erase my footprints?



Formatting a hard drive does not remove anything, not even the
directory. You'll need a "wipe" program.
Click to expand...
Hey boob,

Formatting deletes everything and this is sufficient for most people.
Are you Ken blake by any chance?. Ken Blake [Most Valuable Pig] or
whatever he is called now hasn't formatted a HD in his lifetime and so
he didn't know what formatting was about. I wonder if you are in the
same position! Never mind. You can always learn from us.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the correction. Regrettably, the only thing I've learned is
to rely on my memory. Specifically, in this case:

--- begin quote
The command is used to perform the following actions on magnetic media:
1.. The boot record is placed in the location specified by the partition
table.
2.. The FAT entries are cleared by changing them to 0x00.
3.. The root directory is cleared out by changing any values found to
0x00.
4.. Format then checks each cluster to see if it is good or bad and marks
it in the FAT.
Unless you are using this command on a floppy disk and are using the /U
switch, the data area is untouched. Data previously written to the media
is still intact until it is overwritten when the cluster is reassigned to
new data.

--- end quote


I do appreciate, however, your heartfelt and emphatic response, wrong
though it may be.
Click to expand...
 
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