hard drive eraser

[raftero]

i found this at killdisk.com----active@kill disk,a down load that is supposed to completely erase a hd(better than fdisk and format),is it what it says and would this work if you wanted to install an os on a hd with another os on it?what do you think?sounds like it would save time.

[glc]

That's overkill. Deleting partitions is all you ever need unless the drive gets screwed up, then it may help - but the zero fill utilities from the hard drive manufacturers will take care of it too.

[raftero]

i cant find a zero fill on maxtor unless its the maxblaster ll plus,is that what you would use for installing over another os?

[DrZaius]

Use Maxtor's Powermax utlity, it can do a zero-write.

http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm

[raftero]

thanks,now just to set my mind, such as it is ,at ease,i run this,it cleans my hd,then i run my os(w2k or xp)just like it was a new hd,no fdisk and format etc?all files and left over info. from previous installs are erased right.

[DrZaius]

Correct, this will erase everything on the drive and make it like brand new. You can the install a fresh copy of Win2K/XP without having to pre-fdisk/format.

[raftero]

i thank you kindly, if i am not banned from the forum for asking so many dumb questions one of these days i might even be able to help someone else.i have real good luck building computers but am trying to learn more about set up and repair,and doing different things with them.i got kind of a late start but really enjoy tinkering with the things,and you good folks on the forum have been very informative and patient with me.

[raftero]

now one more,how do you get a link on here where you can just click on it and it comes up?some of them just say click here,some show the link itself, etc.is it a copy and paste or what?

[Mr N8]

You can either just paste the link in, and the url tags auto insert themselves, or you can use this:
{url=www.google.com}Click here{/url}

Replace { } with [ ] I left them that way, so you could see how it works. Otherwise it would have loked like this Click here

[raftero]

i got it,thanks.

[Alfie]

A zero-fiil program writes zeros to the disk,it erases all info,including partition info,after running the zero fill you would still have to partition the drive,however the OS cd will do this for you,so you don't have to do it seperately.

[raftero]

ok it's just like you had a new hd.thanks for the information.