Cleaning hdd before selling

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New Start

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Messages
99
I am going to be selling my laptop, I will reformat and reinstall Windows and drivers before selling it.

I was wondering if it's necessary to do a low level format before reinstalling Windows XP?

If so, how do I do it on a laptop with no floppy drive?
 
burn > http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
use > Autoclave or DBAN or one of the others

the more passes you make the longer it takes and the more secure it is
but simply zeroing the drive once will exceed most peoples ability to recover the data
if youy simply reformat and then reinstall anything not overwritten in the reinstall is basically in plain sight for your run of the mill recovery ap

on the otherhand, if really sensative data (network passwordsd) or identity info,( like SSN or CC#s are on it)
forensic recovery aps can read under data that is overwritten, hense why you write multiple patterns to a drives then zero it

(Forensic aps read the relative strength of each bit to determine a history of its probable previous states + or -, then it recompiles the data, its both expensive and time consuming, )
 
I've ordered things online with my credit card so it's best if I play it safe and clean it off well.

I'm a little confused as to what to do with Autoclave/DBAN and the ultimatebootcd. There seem to be many different programs and ways to do it.
 
Autoclve is very easy to use, just select the drive you wish to wipe, select the level according your security needs and wait several hours until its done :D

Good luck

OldMX
 
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/faq.html
complete instructions for burning the ultimate boot cd ISO

and as mentioned, DBAN or autoclave are pretty self explanitory once you start them,
basically asking you several times if your positive you want to nuke the HDD :p
keep in mind that the time required is dependent on the numbers of patterns you select to overwrite and the size and speed of the HDD
I wouldnt get crazy with the number of passes, it can indeed take a long time
 
Just out of curiousty, how many times does a drive need to be wiped before info is considered truly undreadble? I have heard something like 42 (Hitchhiker's reference!) but can't really back that up.
 
I haven't got to the point of running it, I'm still wondering what exactly to download and what exactly to do with it to get the bootable cd that will ofrmat my drive :eek:
 
just click link
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Ultimate-Boot-CD-Download-5992.html
save to disk, unzip then

Using Burnatonce - Free for non-commercial use burning software (Contributed by Michael Ireland)

1. Load burnatonce software.
2. Let it associate to all ISO files.
3. Open desktop icon.
4. Click on "File" >> "Load New Image ..."
5. Search for the ISO image and select.
6. Click on the "Write" button.
7. From memory, it takes about 20 minutes to do a full copy (of Ultimate Boot CD).

if you burn CDs someother way, the instructions are likely in the link from my last post

once you have the CD, you reboot, access the BIOS, set the boot order to CDROM 1st
put in the CD and boot to it, select Autoclave or DBAN and go

as far as how many patterns till its "truely" secure
well till its ground to dust,
even 42 patterns isnt actually secure it might take the NSA a decade and a half and a few million dollars in supercomputer time,
but theyd eventually get your ghey love letters to Osama :p
 
no just select one of them
the Ultimate Boot CD has the following freeware already on it

Hard Disk Installation
MaxBlast 3 (Maxtor) 3.6
DiscWizard 2003 (Seagate) 10.45.06
Disk Manager (Seagate) 9.56a
Disk Manager (Samsung) 10

Hard Disk Diagnosis
Drive Fitness Test (IBM/Hitachi) 4.00
PowerMax (Maxtor/Quantum) 4.09
DLG Diagnostic (Western Digital) 4.15
DLG Diagnostic (Western Digital) 5.04c
Data Lifeguard (Western Digital) 11.0
SeaTools Desktop (Seagate) 1.06.02
SeaTools Desktop (Seagate) 3.00.07en
Diagnostic Tool (Fujitsu) 6.20
SHDIAG (Samsung) 1.25
HUTIL (Samsung) 1.19
GWSCAN (Gateway) 3.15
GWSCAN (Gateway) 5.09
Salvation HDD Scan and Repair 3.0
MHDD32 4.0
Ontrack Data Advisor Free Edition 5.0

Hard Disk Device Management
Feature Tool (IBM/Hitachi) 1.94
AMSET (Maxtor) 4.00
MAXLLF (Maxtor) 1.1
UATA100 (Seagate) 3.06
Ultra ATA Manager (Western Digital) June, 2003
SMARTUDM 2.00
ATA Password Tool 1.1
ATAINF 1.3m

Hard Disk Wiping
AutoClave 0.3
Active@ KillDisk Free Edition 3.1
Darik's Boot and Nuke 1.0.4
PC INSPECTOR e-maxx 0.95 Build 775

Hard Disk Cloning
HDClone (Free Edition) 2.0
g4u 1.17
PC INSPECTOR clone maxx 0.95 Build 769
XXCOPY 2.85.9

Hard Disk Sector Editor
Disk Editor 3.0
DISKMAN4 4.01
PTS DiskEditor 1.04

Partition Tools
Ranish Partition Manager 2.44
XFDISK (Extended FDISK) 0.9.3beta
SPFDISK (Special FDISK) 2000-03q
TestDisk 5.5
Partition Resizer 1.3.4
Partition Saving 2.91
Free FDISK 1.3.0
MBRtool 2.2.100
MBRWork 1.07b
FIPS 2.0
Active@ Partition Recovery 2.1.1
Boot Managers
Smart BootManager 3.7R1
Gujin 0.9
GAG 4.5d
XOSL 1.1.5
File Managers
DOS Navigator 4.9.0
File Maven 3.5a

NTFS Tools
Offline NT Password & Registry Editor
Note: The SCSI drivers are available on the CD in scsi/. Selecting "[a] autoprobe for the driver" on startup should do the trick. 041205
Active NTFS Reader for DOS 1.0.1
EditBINI 1.01.1
Boot Partition 2.50

System Burn-In Test
Lucifer 1.0

CPU Test
CPU Burn-in 1.00
Mersenne Prime Test 23.5.2

Memory Test
Memtest86 3.2
Memtest86+ 1.40
Windows Memory Diagnostic n/a
DocMem RAM Diagnostic 1.45a
DocMem RAM Diagnostic 2.1b
TestMem4 4
ctramtest 5.1

Peripherals Test
Parallel port detection and test utilities 1.45
ATAPI CDROM Identification 2.03

CPU Information
Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility 7.2.20041115

System Information
AIDA16 2.14
NSSI 0.58.6
PC-Config 9.33
ASTRA 4.21
PCISniffer 1.3
PCI
pcidevs.txt: 21 Nov 2004 0.49B
CTIA 2.1

Benchmark Applications
System Speed Test 32 4.78
3D Benchmark VGA 1.0
CPU Benchmark n/a
CD Index 1.1

BIOS Utilities
BIOS 1.35.1
UniFlash 1.38
WipeCMOS 1.2
CMOSPWD 4.4
!BIOS 3.20

DOS Boot Disks
FreeDOS Boot Disk 3.22
NwDsk: NetWare Boot Disk 3.22
Madboot Floppy 8.0
MSRRC: Bart's Network Boot Disk on FreeDOS 3.22

Antivirus Tools
F-Prot Antivirus for DOS (Personal use only)
Virus definition: 16 Jan 2005 3.16a
McAfee Antivirus Scanner
Virus definition: 12 Jan 2005 4.32.0
Avast! V7.7 for DOS
Virus definition: 18 Jan 2005 7.7
AntiVir Personal Edition
Virus definition: 18 Jan 2005 6.29.0.5

Network Tools
Freesco 0.3.2
Arachne WWW Browser 1.79
QNX Demo Browser (network and modem version) 4.00
NetCopy 0.2
DOSRDP 2.0/XP

Disk Image Tools
Disk Image Writer
Original work by Adrian Stanciu. Writes disk images on UBCD to physical floppy disks.
 
That's what I didn't understand, I thought I had to put one of those 2 programs on the bootable cd.

Thansk for the help!
 
I did as you said, downloaded the file and burnt it, everything went fine until I tried to use it. I got it running, but I could not find any Hard Driving Wiping utilities. As I look at it now the file is "ubcd32-basic.iso". Could there be a "full" version with the Wiping utilities, or am i doing something wrong?
 
did you burn the iso to a disc or just burn it onto a disc. Its a cd image. Use nero and burn the image.
 
as corrosive23 points out its an ISO image and needs to be burned to disk per the instructions given for the various burning ap your using

the Burn at oncce instructions are above

and for
Nero
Nero Express
Easy CD Creator
Easy Media Creator
WinOnCD

if your using something else, you can either download and use Burn at Once which is freeware or youll have to look up the ISO instructions for your own ap in its help ;)

when you successfully do that and boot to the CD youll see this
UBCD.gif


select F2 for the HDD Tools ;)
 
Yes, I buned the ISO correctly and the menu comes up. But after that it just gives a list of HDDs (I don't know what kind I have, it's a laptop), nothing about Disk Wiping utilities.
 
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