[tycoon205]

I have Hitachi Deskstar 1T and Samsung 500 Gig hard drive, the Hitachi has the os and the Samsung has Vista. I install Win 7 64 on the Hitachi and connected both hard drives to the system. I would like to wipe the Samsung clean you know in the days you could format the hard drive. Question is there a utility like that on win 7? I was looking through Win 7 but did not see any where I could format the Samsung hard drive

 

[Black Magix]

download a program called DBAN. Google Boot and nuke and it's a bootable disk that will wipe any hard drive to DoD TS (Top Secret) Standards

http://www.google.com/url?url=http:/...3Jr_USHfEZruHw

 

[_02]

Its called disk manager.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Using-Disk-M...indows-7-Vista

Although there are other programs outside of windows like Eraser, or DBAN that will do it to the point that the data could not be recovered, ever.

 

[thx1138]

I always liked kill disc. It will let you choose to do a one pass sweep with zeroes over any partition or entire volume. Hope that helps.

 

[foX2delta777]

If you are worried about the data left on it then i'd suggest use trueCrypt to encrypt it, it'll be faster than the other methods, then just to a quick format in computer management/storage

 

[FREELINE57]

Disk management, right click disk in question and select formatt ( short or long ).
For wiping a disk i have always used [email protected], it's simple and works great.

 

[the_beast]

There is no benefit whatsoever in using DBAN or KillDisk to wipe a disk unless you intend to sell it or otherwise dispose of it whilst still in a working state.

If you know the disk is in good health (ie have very recently done a full error scan), do a quick format. If you haven't recently scanned the drive a full format is a good idea - the only difference is a full format scans the disk for errors after wiping the file allocation table. A quick format just wipes the file allocation table. Once you have done this Windows has no knowledge of the prior data - it is exactly as if the drive has been fully zeroed, but doesn't require the time or the wear and tear to do so.

 

[_02]

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_beast There is no benefit whatsoever in using DBAN or KillDisk to wipe a disk unless you intend to sell it or otherwise dispose of it whilst still in a working state. If you know the disk is in good health (ie have very recently done a full error scan), do a quick format. If you haven't recently scanned the drive a full format is a good idea - the only difference is a full format scans the disk for errors after wiping the file allocation table. A quick format just wipes the file allocation table. Once you have done this Windows has no knowledge of the prior data - it is exactly as if the drive has been fully zeroed, but doesn't require the time or the wear and tear to do so.

AFAIK a quick file format is not the same as zeroing a drive, or there would be no reason to use an external program to zero the drive.

You can easily recover files from a quick formatted disk, as none of the actual information on the drive has been erased. If you are worried about security, etc, wipe the drive with at least 3 passes of an algorithm or pseudorandom data.

You are right though, it is a waste of time and energy to zero the drive unless you plan on selling it.

A quick format should do the job.

 

[chemicalfan]

Yeah, a quick format wipes the FAT table but leaves the data (that's how "UnFormat" works - it rebuilds the FAT table from the data). You want something like WipeDisc, which will write zeros to every byte.

I like the encryption idea though - even if someone got hold of the drive and "unformatted" it, they'd still end up with a load of encrypted data they couldn't read!

 

[the_beast]

Quote:

Originally Posted by _02 AFAIK a quick file format is not the same as zeroing a drive, or there would be no reason to use an external program to zero the drive.

I didn't say a quick format was the same as a zero-fill. I said as far as Windows is concerned the end result is the same.

If you delete the file allocation table it does't matter if the 1s and 0s of the data still exist on the drive - they cannot be seen by Windows and have no effect on the operation of your OS or your HDD.

 

[_02]

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_beast A quick format just wipes the file allocation table. Once you have done this Windows has no knowledge of the prior data - it is exactly as if the drive has been fully zeroed

Just clarifying. The way you said it made it sound as though it was the same in practice, not just to the OS but in the effects of the data existing on the drive.

To the OS yes, but in actuality it is not the same as zeroing the drive. Windows, for example, can extract files from a previous install that has been quick formatted (using recovery software). Your point, being that the OS would see it as an empty drive, is also true.