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Wipe Old HDD?

Hi. I am replacing a W-XP laptop HDD and will send the old one back to the manufacturer. I think I want to wipe the old drive clean before doing so. I tried to format it using Disk Management, but the format option was grayed out on the R-click menu. May have something to do with system files being on the disk.

In any case, is there a simple way to accomplish this?

Thanks.

Rick

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

r-k

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nobus

or killdisk :

http://www.killdisk.com/

nobus

or the manufacturer's tool :

http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#DFT
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/products/index.htm
http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp
http://www.fcpa.fujitsu.com/support/hard-drives/software_utilities.html
http://www.fcpa.fujitsu.com/download/hard-drives/#diagnostic
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#DFT
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/index.html
http://www.samsungelectronics.com/hdd/support/utilities/utilities_index.html

rindi

You will have to either boot from an alternative OS which isn't on the drive itself, or slave it to another PC. Then you should be able to use one of the tools mentioned by r-k or nobus above to wipe it clean.

r-k

Just to clarify, DBAN includes a self-contained bootable floppy or CD that you can use, so you don't need to boot from an alternate OS to use it.

neamb2

ASKER

Thanks! I'll probably use either dban or seagate to use CD booting. Just a final question: if I use one of these tools, I assume there is no effect on the bios, so I will be able to boot into my OS CD and install it on my new HDD?

Rick

r-k

Yes, it does not affect the bios in any way, just the hard drive.

SteveG00000

Or alternatively you could boot from your OS CD and you will find options to delete the partition before you reinstall, then once deleted just abort the install.

MrBillisMe

use IDE adaptor: Fdisk and format

Gary Case

Most of the above will work fine -- but one question: do you want to wipe the drive "just because" or is the real objective to get rid of your data?

Assuming the latter, all you really need to do is run "Hard Disk Scrubber", a free download at:

http://www.summitcn.com/download.html

Just delete all of your personal data, empty the recycle bin, and then run Hard Disk Scrubber. You can do all of this from within Windows.

Remember that just booting from a floppy/CD and deleting the current partition (& even formatting it) doesn't actually delete your old data. DBan will do this just fine, however, as long as you select the secure deletion mode.

mcp_jon

No comment has been added to this question in more than 21 days, so it is now classified as abandoned..
I will leave the following recommendation for this question in the Cleanup topic area:
Accept R-k 's comment as Answer

Any objections should be posted here in the next 4 days. After that time, the question will be closed.

mcp_jon
EE Cleanup Volunteer

neamb2

ASKER

Sorry, I thought I had closed this. Points assigned to r-k

r-k

Thanks.