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what is the best way to format..


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Howdy what is the best way to format so that... no recovery of the HD can be done... i usually just do the standard format in dos.. but.. was wondering if there was a more effective way to do this that wouldnt leave any trace or files behind

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..so no recovery of the HD can be come?

open up your comp, take out the hard drives. find a really big hammer..smash..smash..smash..

and there you go, no possible recovery.

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format will always leave stuff

what u want is to wipe the drive

it writes all 0's then all 1's then all 0's

a number of times

that is only way to erase the drive

even hiting it with hammer may not work

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You can d/l some utilities that will do a format that meets DOD (Department of Defense) standards so that the data is unretrievable.

I did a quick search on google for "erase disk dod" and this one program popped up that looks like it'll do what you need. There's several programs out there that will serve the same purpose, so look around if you want.

http://www.killdisk.com

Enjoy!

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Originally posted by generalnewbie

that it will always leave behind something for the FEDs to track?

Check your hard drive brand and go to their website to see if there's software that wil write all 0s (like devobitch said). EG: Fujitsu has it on their site.

BTW, are the FEDs going to be looking through your hard drive or something?

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if you format a HD so that it has nothing but zeros, it would seem like the computer would not know where to start/stop writing and/or reading the HD.

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better safe than sorry! plus i was gonna sell my HD

because i got a new 120 gig so...

this made me think of the dangers...

anyways thanks for your help

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Originally posted by Winston

FORMAT C: /U

the switch /u means unconditional that means it clears all clusters

That works to a point but I used some programs and still got some of the data off the drive :)

After the data has been deleted and written over a few times (7 is recomended) it is very hard to get back, but if you really want to be safe, throw the drive in a nice hot fire :)

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If your bios has a "Low Format HDD" it is the best tool, it is the only true "format", nothing will ever be recovered. This can also be done professionally but its around $40. Dont know how long it would take with standard drives though.

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