How Do I....

AJ

AJ

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how do i totally erase my Hard Drive?

there are some things on my computer that wont go away by simply deleting them. is there anyway to like, totally erase the hard drive and start from new? or am i just wishfully thinking?
 
AJ said:
how do i totally erase my Hard Drive?

there are some things on my computer that wont go away by simply deleting them. is there anyway to like, totally erase the hard drive and start from new? or am i just wishfully thinking?
Click to expand...

Yes, there are several good softwares to erase your hard drive. I do need one for my 2 old computers. I decide to hold it till a near-future time to do it.

It's the Google link on those hd erasers for you to look and find the right software for you at:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hard+drive+eraser&btnG=Google+Search
 
The easiest way to clean your disk is to boot off of a boot disk or live CD and simply recreate the drive's filesystem. It doesn't "delete" files per se, in the sense that it fills the space they were in with a zero. Rather, since the filesystem index is now empty, the system is no longer aware that a "file" (ie a string of 1s and 0s) exists at a particular location on the disk. As a result, the file still exists in the sense that its physical location still holds the file's data, but without special software there's no way to detect it and the operating system would simply write over it in the event you create a new file on the drive, since the file is "gone" from the filesystem index.
 
And then there's this, Aj; if you live at least three stories up.......
 
ha...yeah right Tousi, id drop my own balls 3 stories high before i dropped my lap top.
 
use magnet

magnet.jpg
 
could try windows washer it has a way to make a disk to totally wipe your hd but be carefull I dunno if works
 
:laugh2: Get a welder's mask then fire the sparks then torch away...... :laugh2:
 
AJ,

I think you need to purchase new Seagate HD for your less headaches... Maybe your operating system has a problem.

If your HD is less than a year, it is ok to reformat. Did you know that XP has restore system form System Tools?

Good Luck.

P.S. please open your old HD and erase with yellow No. 2 pencil.
 
When Hubby was in the Navy, he used to take the HD out of the computer at the end of each day and lock it in the safe (the military computers had "easy to remove" HDs). If they had to erase the HD, they took it out of the computer and smashed it to pieces with a hammer. Then the pieces were put into a burn bag for classified material, and burned to ash in the incinerator.

You probably want a less "messy" solution. :D
 
Reba said:
You probably want a less "messy" solution. :D
Click to expand...

and probably wants to keep using the drive ;)

Completely reformating your hard drive is sometimes the best way to completely get rid of a bad spyware or virus infection.

First back up all your documents, anything that you want to keep, put the files on a CD or some other disk.

If your computer came with restore disks, you should use those. Make sure you select the option to reformat the hard drive.
 
Reba said:
When Hubby was in the Navy, he used to take the HD out of the computer at the end of each day and lock it in the safe (the military computers had "easy to remove" HDs). If they had to erase the HD, they took it out of the computer and smashed it to pieces with a hammer. Then the pieces were put into a burn bag for classified material, and burned to ash in the incinerator.
Click to expand...

I've heard that there's firms out there that actually try to recover data from such physically destroyed drives... Typically when the government needs the data off a drive that has been destroyed as evidence in order to try a suspected criminal.

Ultimately, the best way to destroy a drive's data is to zerofill it. That is, take the entire drive and make its contents from position 0 to n be "0". Completely eliminates any possibility of the data being recovered. I don't know how to do this in Windows, but in Linux you just have to dd /dev/zero.
 
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