wiping out

[DREW10]

I want too totaly wipe out my HD and start from new......i have heard of programs that write random 1's & 0's......is that what i want(and waht is it called)....or something else

THANX
DREW

 

[Canon]

You probably mean you just want to format and re-install in which case you can just put your Windows XP cd into the cd-drive, boot from the CD and then format the partition. (Or you could boot with a win98 boot disk and do fdisk and then format).

The reason for writing the 1s and 0s to the hard drive is to erase data (for example if you were going to sell your hard drive or throw it away. It makes data retrieval next to impossible.

 

[Tigerbiten]

If you go to your hard drives manufactures home page and download a disk checker.
It should give you the option to do whats called a "low level format".
Doing that will wipe all data from the disk.

It normaly done if you want to add a used disk to a raid array. That way theres no chance of the old data corruping the array.
I've also done it before reinstalling Windozes after picking up a virus. Again no chance of the virus surviveing.

Hope that helps.

Luck..........

 

[m-unit]

PGP does a good job. it integrates into the shell, so you just right click the drive and select wipe, it gives the option to wipe from anywhere from 1 to 25 times. here is a link to the freeware http://www.pgp.com/products/freeware.html

 

[spectrum]

I like DBAN for data distruction. Works great.

 

[animeguru]

Autoclave and other useful HDD wiping utilities can be found on the Ultimate Boot CD along with countless other usefull utilities.