free zero fill utility

[hobey19]

anyone know of a zero fill utility that is free and will work on any type of HD

thanks
craig

[HAL9000]

I've always used this (http://www.qdigrp.com/qdisite/driver/LF.EXE) from QDI. Its worked on every drive I tried it on. As always, use at your own risk and follow the onscreen instructions.

[Miz]

I've also heard good reports about KillDisk, which has a free version you can download from http://www.killdisk.com.

[kilgoretrout]

If your familiar with linux you can do it with the "dd" command:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdx

where 'x' corresponds to the device file for the drive. The manufacturer's utility is always best though because they check for bad sectors much better.

[not important]

I have used killdisk, that Miz mentioned, several times with good results.

[hobey19]

thanks, guys, i downloaded hal's and it worked perfectly

craig

[shifty]

How long did it take?I just used WD"s zero fill on an 80 gig and it took over 8 hours.

[raftero]

shifty,i just used WD zero fill on a 40 gig drive and it took about 20 minutes,didn't have a lot on the drive,maybe that makes a difference.it was much faster than the maxtor zero fill.

[shifty]

20 minutes!Wow.Am I doing something wrong.I've done it a few times and it always took a long time.Are you sure your doing the zero and not the extended test?

[not important]

I recently used Killdisk on a 60GB Maxtor with about 10G's on it. It took a couple of hours or more.

[hobey19]

for a 10 gig hd it took a while. i put it in at 11 at night and when i woke up at 6 the next morning it was done. guess i can't give a real estimate, but i sat and watched it till midnight and it was not very far in, so i don't know.

craig

[raftero]

shifty i put the disk in(didn't run)just to make sure and i had used zero fill.thats the first time i had used wd zero fill and was suprised too.that was on a 40 gig drive.